MJ, Splendid statement.

Todd Gitlin

It seems to me that Brooks went to speak, not to listen.

David Brooks is so likeable. He's one of the only decent 'conservatives' I could name. He's earnest and civil and respectful and he seems bereft of the conservative 'mood' or emotion of hatred of the weak.

Still, he's an American, and that means he looks at the mid east as an American puppetmaster. We've been pulling levers over there for over fifty years - almost always what we do ends up blowing up in our faces.

Still, MJ, you might want to reformulate the solution to this mess. There's a new book out by a Palestinian scholar at the University of Chicago, basically saying that partition will never work.

He comes at it from the perspective of Ireland and South Africa success stories. He thinks it would be better to just give citizenship in Israel to Palestinians. Remember, there are already many Arab Israelis.

There are successful models for ending apartheid societies, but creating insta-states has shown to be fraught with peril and bad unintended consequences. Are Indian Muslims really better off with Pakistan?

Nationalist fantasies on both sides are only reinforced by creating a state that, by definition and from its birth views Israel as enemy number one.

Israel has the resources - not to mention backing of a Superpower, to make this happen. Re-enfranchisement of Palestinians with land, resources, and the vote would quite likely be a better option for them than some pseudo state.

Daniel,
You may have missed Andrew Golis' posting in which he said that if you continue to accuse TPMers of anti-semitism, you are banned. I guess you can't read.
Andrew?

MJ has obviously never travelled in the Arab Middle East, or spoken to ordinary Arabs - not simply the elites. Travelling through Egypt, and actually speaking to ordinary people there, it is obvious that they dont really care much about the Palestinians; it simply is not one of their main concerns.

Moreover, if there really was such an affinity among the Palestinians and "Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis and Iraqis", why have they not helped them out more over the last 60 years? Why are there still Palestinian "refugees" in Lebanon? Why aren't they allowed to even purchase land? Why haven't the oil-rich Saudis given material help to these "refugees"? or helped resettle them, as all refugees except the Palestinians were? Why were they expelled by the hundreds of thousands from Kuwait in 1991, and from Iraq presently? The fact is that there is no such connection.

Arab society is still very much a tribal one, as Iraq should clearly illustrate. Tribal affiliation is much more important than national affiliation.

The fact is that for the elites, the Palestinian problem and Israel are embarrasments, and they want the US to make those problems go away.

Nudnik:

Biography

M.J. Rosenberg works in Washington supporting US efforts to advance an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. After the signing of the Oslo Accords, Rosenberg broke with the AIPAC position and became a strong advocate of the "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You sure hit the nail on the head, that MJ is one ignorant bastard.

Why doesn't he talk about what he knows, and leave the Middle East to experts like you?

MJ, you identified the reasons why it would be reasonable for Americans to believe Arab and Muslim sympathy for the Palestinians is a pretext, yet then proceed to gloss over them by projecting your own laudable values and world view into the minds of Arab elites.  I think this issue needs much more careful analysis.

The overriding source of skepticism comes from the Arab treatment of Palestinian refugees.  Parading the suffering of the refugees, rather than ameliorating it has been Arab policy (Jordan at times providing the sole significant exception.)  Historically, the Jewish-Arab population exchange after the creation of Israel was one of many exchanges that occurred in the volatile post-war years (India-Pakistan, Germans from Eastern Europe being other examples.)  The tragic circumstances of these refugees was ameliorated by the fact that they were welcomed and integrated into their new countries.  As you know, Jewish refugees from Arab lands were embraced and integrated (Ashkenazi paternalism aside) into Israeli society.  Only the Palestinians were left in squalor to be used as political pawns.      

The second source of skepticism comes from the misuse of the Palestinian issue for political issues.  Arab elites use it as an excuse to deflect criticism from the political and economic reforms they refuse to make.  Why should the Palestinian question have to be resolved before Egypt has an independent judiciary or Saudi women can drive? 

Moreover, there are all sorts of fractures within the Arab world that are wholly unrelated to the Palestinian problem - the Sunni/Shia split, Syria's aspirations to hegemony in Lebanon and the rest of "Greater Syria", the rise of militant Islamism. 

Now to the extent Brooks was talking to Jordanian elites, the calculus changes somewhat.  Certainly Jordanians sensibly put the Palestinian question front and center as the future of Jordan as a relatively liberal oasis is dependent on normalizing the condition of Palestinian refugees.  Granted, it is also true that the Palestinian issue exacerbates other conflicts in the region and complicates American diplomacy.  But that is wholly different that the narrative that Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians is the "root" of the region's troubles.

Finally, we come to perhaps the most serious problem.  Notwithstanding the cynicism of Arab elites, there is a genuine emotional bond between much of the Arab world and the plight of the Palestinians.  However, it is less the material suffering of the Palestinians (which Arabs decline to ameliorate where they can) that drives popular Arab anger but rather Palestinian shame and dishonor.  The very existence of Israel is shameful to much of the Arab world as a patent reminder of their weakness.

The Palestinians material suffering can and should be ended through a combination of settlement in a Palestinian state in the West Bank and absoption by neighboring countries  (funded Israel, the West and Arabs).  Unfortunately, it is unclear whether this will mollify the shame and dishonor that Arabs tap into through the Palestinian Naqba.  That's not a reason to abandon the search for peace, but it is a major obstacle.  Challenging the Arabs to reconsider their narrative, however, is absolutely necessary to overcoming that obstacle.    

Nowhere did I say he was ignorant, merely that his views may reflect the views of the Arab elites, but certainly not of the Arab masses. His bio does not change that opinion in the least.

People like Brooks believe that Palestine is a pretext. For Brooks, it is not, it cannot be, the main reason so many Arabs and Muslims have such strong antipathy to the US government. And the fact is that the Palestinians have often been used as a pretext for incitement against Israel and Jews by the same forces that have done virtually nothing to ease the Palestinians’ plight. And also, of course, as a pretext for war. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah professed love for the Palestinians while he was attacking Israel last summer and killing Palestinians along with their Israeli neighbors.

MJ,

You say people like Brooks think Palestine is just a pretext, then go on to explain how Palestine was just a pretext to Nasrallah last summer. To imply that Hezbollah is not a supporter of Palestine is disingenuous. Lebanon does have its own issues with Israel, but the Palestinian struggle and Lebanon struggle are intimately tied. I applaud your honest appraisal of the Palestinian plight. But if you assert that Hezbollah used the Palestinians as a pretext to bomb Israel, then what pretext did the U.S. have for inciting Israel to bomb the hell out of civilian Lebanon and prolonging that carnage?

But Abraham Lincoln was a Republican! Ha-ha! Answer _that_ you lefties!

And how can _I_ be racist? I'm white--that's a race.

(In other words: yes, please stop with this. Sheesh. This was transparently idiotic twenty years ago, and has been devolving ever since in even uglier directions.)

I agree with Andrew. I think Greenbaum has taken his probation to heart.
But I certainly agree with what Andrew said in his warning to Daniel.
We can, all of us including me, conduct this debate
without name calling.
I don't mean political descriptions like liberal, radical, neoconservative, Zionist, Communist, etc but those names that have a decided racial or ethnic connotation.
Feel free to call me a jerk and the world's worst writer of prose. But skip the references to my being a Jew.

I am without hope for any change in the situation.

Israel's population is dominated by the self-selected group of Jews that are through with any kind of accomodation or assimilation. The only factor that would alter their opinions would be undercutting (in their mind) the legitimacy of Israel's founding. Not going to happen.

Arabs will similarly never truly accept legitimacy for Israel.

They will fight to exhaustion, and with Israel being stronger in most ways, it will survive as the Palestinians wither, and eventually emigrate (those with the wherewithal).

I'm tired of both peoples. The only reason I still care, beyond normal empathy for those living in strife, is the effects the issue has outside of the area. Therefore, I would avoid involvement in the area. Screw oil and the sheiks.

As to policies that lead to dead Jews, how about trying to start a country in the middle of a hostile population? Might have seemed a good idea at the time, but by now it looks way worse than our Iraq blunder.

In any case, we need to find some maneuvering room in our Mideast diplomacy. That means goodbye oil. First things first.

So sorry to be "transparently idiotic" I usually aim for opaque idiocy.

In the spirit of nitpicking, isn't the 'ownership' of anti-semitism and the stripping away of 'semite' from Arabs just another way for Jews to distance themselves from the Arab 'race' and therefore call them lying backstabbers?

Compare the way jews were treated under Arab Muslims in the iberian penensula with the way Jews were treated under Spanish 'Christendom.' This gulf between Muslims (Arabs) and Jews is only decades long, while their brotherhood has lasted centuries.

C'mon the "Arabs aren't Semitic" notion feeds into this whole bizarre narrative of the AIPAC and krischun right teaming together to allow a perfect calf to be sacrificed and Jebus to come on down from his throne.

Is it really going that far to say the idea of 'white' Jews is just as new and strange as the idea of 'non semite' Arabs?

Maybe Brooks should be charged with a violation of The Logan Act :-)

Tom, I'm speaking as a gentile with no iron in this fire, so it's easy to say pox on both houses or whatever.

Still, it's a humanitarian issue as well as an issue of pride and tit for tat.

That's why I'm convinced the answer is to just to call it Israel and - through the vast riches of Israel and the US - re-enfranchise the aggrieved Palestinians with of thier stolen land and build them houses to replace the ones IDF bulldozed. An additional cash 'reparation' might help Palestinians set up businesses and be productive once again.

Maybe 'Arab' nations won't like it, but it would be a gracious and humanitarian gesture, and Israelis could have a clear conscience of atoning for whatever sins from '67 to '07 and just move on.

Remember, it was under Oslo and Arafat that Israel achieved three of its most secure years of its history.

It was also as a result of Oslo that Israel had thrust onto it one of the longest and most damaging wars in its history, with more civilian casualties than at any other time.

Arafat "battled the terrorists" not because he wanted peace, but because that was what was expediant at the time for him to get what he wanted. And when he got what he wanted, he unleashed the terrorists again.

Some light academic rigor. 

Forms of the word "semite" are linguistic terms, applied to the family of languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic.  It is not a term accurately signifying "race" (a flawed concept to begin with).

The term antisemitism is not a Jewish invention.  Jews never referred to each other or anyone else as "semites."  Wilhelm Marr popularized the term at or around 1870 when he formed the Antisemitic League in order to combat what he saw as the "Judaization" of Austria and Germany.  The term stuck.

Oh, no, MJ! Don't respond to -me-! Repond to mhpine! I'm just the idiot who glommed onto the original, more-intelligent post.

I'm not sure how 'central' and 'of vast importance' differ, I guess. I think the genocides we're currently ignoring might not be 'central' to the political stability of any region, but they're certainly of vast moral importance. I'd like to see us talking about something other than 'centrality' and 'root causes', where we can get pretty bogged down in presumptions and undefined terms.

And other than your notion that a two-state solution will end the fixation on Israel, I agree, too. I mean, yes, in the best two-state solution we'll have peace, and the Israelis and Palestinians will both benefit greatly ... but if you expect that Israel will be accepted in the region, in any meaningful way, you're crazy.

And yeah. We're all still suffering from the assassination of Rabin. (And didn't you once wrote a long post about the Barak peace plan? I can't find via searching ...)