Just the usual noises from the ordinary triumphalist idiots who managed to buy a bigger chunk of the public discourse than the rest of us. Fuck'em.

You are quite right that the Jewish neo-cons don't really care about Israel, but for the wrong reason. As I stated in an earlier thread, you (MJ) and the Jewish neo-cons are two sides of the same coin. You both have natural sentiments towards the Jewish State, but you both have big caveats to this support. In your case, Israel has to fit into the larger "progressive" agenda, which means supporting "third-world liberation movements" even at the expense of Israel's security and possibly its very existence (the phony "Palestinian" cause), whereas the Jewish neo-cons have to fit Israel into the "America must export all of its capitalist values around the world, even by force if necessary". (I am NOT referring to basic principles like human rights, normal civil society and the like which indeed are universal values, I am referring to their obsessive belief in "free markets", "social darwinism", "untrammeled globalist capitalism, which may be good in some countries but not in others,etc). Thus we saw Jewish neo-con journalists twisting themselves around trying to justify turning control of the US ports to Dubai simply because their hero George W was for it.
Both MJ's "progressives" and the formerly Marxist neo-cons have this idea that if only everyone in the world thought like them, there would be utopia, so we have to start getting everyone to think like us (or coercing them through PC'ism, thought police, etc).

The real world is much more complicated and has to be accepted as is as well as the fact that different people have different ideas. This means, regarding the Palestinians, there is NO solution that satisfies either the "progressive agenda", meaning a supposedly "democratic progressive Palestinian state" which will never arise, as Brett Stephens and other now realize, nor Bush's phony "Road Map" and "Two-state solution" which was supposed to be fulfillment of a promise he made to the Saudis, but rather managing the conflict with Israeli maintaining control of Judea/Samaria, returning to Gaza, and after making clear to the Arabs that terrorism will not be tolerated, doing whatever can be done to improve their lives and economic situation within the constraints of the ongoing Arab hostility to Israel.

I am now preparing for the usual outburst of rage from the "progressives" here who have a nervous breakdown whenever they encounter someone who thinks differently than they do.

OK. So they're not Palestinians, they're "Arabs." They're still there, but the Israeli government doesn't want them to be part of the society. So now what?
bar_kochba132's idea of "managing" the situation, I have a feeling, is going to be questionable at best.

Palestinian national aspiration is not a phony issue.  It amounts to 3.5 million stateless people in a territory Israel has occupied but will not annex, and the occupation does not work.  It is true that if the Arab establishment had been as genuinely interested in Palestinian national liberation over the 19 years that Jordan had annexed the West Bank and Egypt had occupied Gaza as they had been in dispatching that of the Jews, then there would likely had been no war in 1967 and no occupation today.  But forty years on, it is time to cut loose and restore the human rights of Palestinians in the only practical way that is possible.  Namely, the establishment of an independent Palestine beside (not instead of) a secure Israel.

Whence the quotes?

The Other Alan,

Israel is Palestine,therefore there is no two-state solution. Herzl himself wrote that "Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home."

It is important to understand and appreciate that history does not happen all at once.  Herzl passed away nearly half a century before the establishment of the state of Israel.  The real estate in question had been commonly labeled Palestine since the 2nd Century CE.

The rest of your comment is a series of false choices.  The simplest response to which is: if we can support one democratic government, we can support more than one.  The demographics are very real and hardly artificial.  Two nations, two states.

Brett stephens is correct.

Unfortunately, the neocons aren't the only Israeli supporters or even the most rabid. Wait until the Dems gain more power in Washington. In any case, things look gloomy indeed for the poor Palestinians.

Palestine: It's All Over
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

. . . Gradually, through the 1980s, very often in the translations from the Hebrew language press that Shahak used to send, the contours of the Israeli plan emerged, like the keel and ribs and timbers of an old ship: a road system that would bypass Palestinian towns and villages and link the Jewish settlements and military posts; ever-expanding clusters of settlements; a master plan for control of the whole region's water.

It wasn't hard to get vivid descriptions of the increasingly intolerable conditions of life for Palestinians: the torture of prisoners, the barriers to the simplest trip, the harassment of farmers and school children, the house demolitions. Plenty of people came back from Israel and the territories with harrowing accounts, though few ever made the journey into a major newspaper or onto national tv.

And even in the testimonies that did get published here, what was missing was any acknowledgement of the long-term plan to wipe the record clean of all troublesome U.N. resolutions, crush Palestinian national aspirations, steal their land and water, cram them into ever smaller enclaves, ultimately balkanize them with the Wall, which was on the drawing board many years ago. Indeed to write about any sort of master plan was to incur further torrents of abuse for one's supposedly "paranoid" fantasies about Israel' bad faith, with much pious invocation of the "peace process".

But successive Israeli governments did have a long-term plan. No matter who was in power, the roads got built, the water stolen, the olive and fruit trees cut down (a million) the houses knocked over (12,000), the settlements imposed (300) the shameless protestations of good faith issued to the US press . . . .
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06052006.html

I for one am interested in what Israelis think, even if I don't like what some of them think.

Matter of fact, I think it's too bad that so many think of this as an "Americans only" website, and I have argued in the past that the only foreign issues that get covered here being labeled "America Abroad" perpetuate the type of thinking that developed with the "blooming" of American neo-conservativism. If all you know of what "the other" thinks is what another American tells you, do you really know anything about the situation at all? And would your suggestions about the situation be reality-based at all if you won't hear out what people from the actual area think?

Following your train of thought here, it seems to me the best way that the Israeli government might convince the world (at least those of us who are paying attention) that they're serious about a Palestinian state and are entering into discussions to actually achieve that, rather than merely stalling for more time to create additional facts on the ground, is to announce unambigously that they are immediately halting all further settlement activity. If they were serious about "supporting Abbas," that's what they could easily do, and it wouldn't involve anything that could be considered a security risk to Israel. But don't hold your breath.

Instead, we see Olmert wavering: The idea of removing checkpoints was put forth, but the IDF objected, so Olmert withdrew it. Then there's the prisoner release, which, although quite a few news outlets are offering dramatic headlines about a "mass prisoner release," amounts to only a measly 250 out of over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners (including a significant number of children) in Israeli jails. Even still there are strings attached (and if past is prologue, more strings to come), and RW elements of Israeli government are protesting even that tiny number. And so on.

Not to mention that Israeli military activity, and the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank (including Fatah members), seems to have actually increased since Abbas' formation of the emergency government. Funny way to show support...

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals..." ~~ Iraq Study Group

shoulda used 'scare' type on Vatican city.

First truth in advertising: the post is not about the poor, I mean it, Palestinians that are now split politically and geographically, but rather about your nemesis the Neocons.

First, Peretz is not a Neocon; he may be DLC type but he is not a Republican. The New Republic is as fine as any other publican.

I am not going to defend the Neocons since I really couldn't care less about them. You still totally distort their affinities.

For the more important issue: the Palestinians. I hope they will recover from the current trouble and I believe they will. Yet, self destruction is well known. The 2nd Temple in Jerusalem is said to have been destroyed due to hatred. Israelis and Palestinian are strngly related, we want the Palestinians to do well.

Although what you say is true enough as far as it goes, I think you are missing key aspects of what is going on, so it certainly isn't following my train of thought.

Here's some of my train of thought from recent very rough notes in discussions elsewhere.

12. Any deal has to be with Palestinian people as a whole (including diaspora), not with "moderates". The changes required are in Israeli policy. Hence the complex maneuvering to exhaust all other Israeli options while retaining the perception that Palestinian intransigence is what is being overcome.

Although there is real and disgraceful faction fighting between Hamas and Fateh, the focus in media on "moderates" as the hope for peace has much more to do with adapting Israeli public opinion than with reality. Israeli measures that imply acceptance of defeat can be presented as assisting the "moderates" against Hamas (and of course Iran). But the point is that the US is now openly joining Europe in requiring those measures (and Israeli government accepting them as "tactics" "to support moderates" against Hamas and Iran - when not accepting defeat they follow opposite tactics).

The way everything is being framed in the media is about "Israel supporting moderate Abbas to isolate terrorist Hamas in Gaza".

This tacitly reinforces conceptions that the problem is Palestinian intransigence, which Israel needs to overcome in its valiant struggle for peace.

A natural response from peole fed up with Israel's valiant struggle for peace is to regard Palestinian "moderates" with great suspicion as Israeli stooges (that suspicion has been greatly intensified recently among Palestinians themselves and Israel is very obviously not helping Abbas by overtly fanning it).

Another natural response is to assume that "nothing ever changes" and we are just seeing yet another replay of the "peace process" that goes together with creeping annexation.

What is being missed is that the Israeli government would be doing precisely the opposite of what it is currently doing if its really hoped to maintain the occupation.

Instead of announcing that it has to support Abbas against Hamas, Israel would be seizing the opportunity of the Palestinians discrediting themselves (which they have by disgraceful infighting) to fully break off relations with the PNA and Abbas as having no relevance to anything, occupy the Philadelphia corridor to reimpose the blockade of Gaza etc etc.

The US won't allow that and there is no way the Israel lobby could mount a successful campaign to persuade Americans the Bush administration is soft on terrorism, anti-semitic etc etc.

Instead they are reinforcing the idea that Fateh (which has always been their main enemy) is their great friend.

Your assumption seems to be that the Israeli government's tactical problem is how to convince people that it is serious about supporting Abbas while actually entrenching its occupation.

My view is that the Israeli government's tactical problem is how to undo the effects of nearly 40 years of a national project to conquer "judea and samaria" given their internal estimates that the US will no longer pay for it, without a totally demoralizing conflict with a large and somewhat psychotic minority who have devoted a large part of their lives to the settlement project.

If Abbas was an Israeli stooge, the Israeli government would not be embarassing him by shouting about their support for him.

They are doing that, depite its obviously damaging effects for Abbas, because it really doesn't matter. The target of Israeli government propaganda is Israelis (and Americans) - practically nobody else pays much attention to what they say any more.

Announcing that Fateh is Israel's ally and hope for the future is quite Orwellian. It really is "Oceania is at war with Eurasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia" stuff (and goes together with suddenly discovering that Iran, which has no common border is their new "existential threat"). This stuff has been introduced gradually and reinforced over a long period to a populace that was brought up on hatred towards "Fateh terrorists".

Naturally they have to equivocate, take contradictory measures, drop hints that it is all a delaying tactic etc etc.

Incidentally for what its worth, my impression is that the new emergency government is as much a coup against both the old guard of Fateh and the Dahlan faction as it is against Hamas.

Both have less representation in the emergency government than before (in fact basically none, like Hamas). The only possible resolution will be fresh elections (both PNA and PLO), the certain winners of which will be supporters of Barghoutis line of determined and militant resistance to reach a genuine peace agreement (as opposed to just hanging on or ideological posturing).

Don't misunderestimate Condi ;-)

I'm at a loss to explain why anyone should mourn the death of Palestinian nationalism, which has brought little but death, misery, terrorism, backwardness and barbarism, not to mention cronyism, corruption and kleptocracy.  The Palestinian people have certainly not been well served by it, nor has anyone else.

Had Palestinian nationalism never arisen, it is likely that the Arabs of Palestine would have eventually been absorbed into the existing states of the region - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.  Yes of course, these Arabs were denied absorption by some of these states, Jordan being the exception.  But absent Palestinianism, the West Bank likely would have eventually been annexed by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt.

But while counterfactual history can be fun, it's not very useful, especially in a conflict as complex as this one.  MJ is right that Palestinians themselves aren't going away, and it is hard to see how the present situation is better for Israel in any case.  Gaza is as unstable and radicalized as Lebanon.  Missiles from Gaza will eventually get farther into Israel.  And when the inevitable crackdown comes, it will start a new round of condemnation of Israel around the world.  Meanwhile in the West Bank, the danger of a similar radicalization is all too real.

What to do?  The truth is that there are no good options.  The status quo is bad.  But unilateral withdrawal would be worse, as missiles from Ramallah into Tel Aviv or Jerusalem would be an inevitable consequence, as would further chaos with inter-factional fighting.  Furthermore, it is hard to see how a negotiated settlement, even if one were possible, and I don't think one is, would prevent this from happening as well.

It could be that the present situation, as undesirable as it is, is the least bad option.  Israel has muddled through for most of its history - why not more?  Meanwhile, its economy is growing again and the violence is more or less contained.  Is this complacency?  Certainly not.  But it might be the most realistic way of thinking about the situation.  The fact is that peace between the Arabs of Palestine and Israel is just too implausible given where we are now.  Israel is NOT, contrary to the frequent assertions of many, in mortal danger, at least not yet.  So why not accept that any breakthroughs are a long way away and much needs to change to make one happen.  Peace is simply not possible given Arab attitudes.  It is really that simple.

On what basis do you pin your hopes that the Pals "will recover from their current trouble"? For decades different Arab/Muslim states have been sticking their fingers into the Palestinian political scene for their own reasons. Arafat managed to convince certain key people (Shimon Peres, George Bush I, Bill Clinton and various Europeans) that he was THE key man who controlled the Pals. Of course, this wasn't true, and indeed immediately on receiving the goodies from the Oslo Agreements (territory from which to attack Israel directly) he started claiming he was "too weak" to control the various terrorist groups. In fact he never really did try to control them. I was told by an informed person that Arafat never dared show his face in the Balata refugee camp near Shechem (Nablus), and his armed militians were afraid to enter the camp either or take on its armed men who have been terrorizing the region around Shechem ever since Oslo was foisted on everyone. They Syrians, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, etc, have all been meddling in the Pals affairs. So the supposed desire of the Pals to have "self-determination" and to reach some settlement with Israel has never been a major priority for these outside forces who are intervening in order to advance their own interests, none of which are related to the Pals supposed drive for "self-determination". Now that there is NO seemingly strong, consensus figure like Arafat who supposedly speaks for the Pals, how do you expect them to get their act together?

Wow, M.J., great post

Brad the Dad says:
"I'm at a loss to explain why anyone should mourn the death of Jewish nationalism, which has brought little but death, misery, terrorism, backwardness and barbarism, not to mention cronyism, corruption and kleptocracy. The Jewish people have certainly not been well served by it, nor has anyone else."

Actually, Israel for all its problems, is nothing at all like that nonsense that Brad wrote. Israel and Zionism are the BIG success story of the post-War world. Even MJ has written about this in the recent past. Polls show consistenly that the vast majority of Israelis INCLUDING ISRAELI ARABS find Israel a fine place to live. Judaism is making its biggest cultural revival in 2000 years. Different communities (e.g. Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Yemenite, Ethiopian, etc) are enriching each other after generations of artificial isolation.

Who are you to tell us, the large majority of the world's Jews who either live in Israel or identify with it, what we are thinking in our own heads? Your bizarre outpouring reflects more on you than on Israel. If you want to see backwardness, go to the Arab countries. As I understand it, the computer chips you are using in your computer come from Israel, so who is backward?

Reece,

If peace is not possible because of Arab attitudes, how would those attitudes need to change for peace to be possible, and how can those changes be brought about?

It would be helpful if the Arab establishment recognize that Arab peoples are not the only peoples native to the region, and that its overall claim of regional hegemony is at least as racist as they have historically accused Zionism of being.  As a first step toward facilitating such change, it would help to dissolve the League of Arab States.

When the Arabs and those "paying attention" really prove they are serious about a Palestinian State then Israel can worry about proving to Palestinians that they wiil negotiate with them a serious deal. As things stand now the Palestinians can abide by agreements with each other.

Yes, Yes it is all Israel's fault. No matter how many Arabs are killed by Arabs, no matter how many missiles Palestinians fire at Israel all Israel has to do is agree to commit suicide and voila you will and the others who don't care if Israel exists anyway will be happy.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Very funny.  But you don't really believe that he expected the Arab League to take him up on the challenge, do you?  What I am sure Shimon Peres was and remains very well aware of is that the Arab League is the only private club in town, and that he was basically drawing our attention to the same essential thing.  Namely, the Arab establishment's sense of entitlement to the political monopoly on national legitmacy in the region.

I don't understand your first paragraph so perhaps I have misunderstood the second.

If I have understood the second correctly I am inclined to agree with it. I believe there will ultimately be a deal in which sovereignty over different parts of Jerusalem is divided between a Palestinian and an Israeli capital but in which the two parts are not closed off from movement between them.

That certainly seems desirable and there seemed to be some agreement on that in the Geneva proposals.

If that is what you meant then you should have no problem condemning the current Israeli annexation of the whole of Jerusalem.

Lame? How so?

LOL!  I'll tell you why its lame.  Because it's so transparently false.  You look in any book about Jewish history and Zionism and the founding of Israel will be listed as one of the great achievements in the history of the Jewish people, a history stretching back more than 5,000 years.  After 2,000 years of exile from their homeland, after countless massacres, pogroms, expulsions and migrations, Jews are no longer subject to the whims of others.  Finally there is a state, a homeland, a religious center and, yes, an army that Jews can call their own.  What's more, it's a prosperous, successful state, one that takes care of its people.  While it may not have achieved the old Zionist dream of being a "light unto the nations", it is certainly a light unto the rest of the Middle East, which is mostly a cesspool of dictatorship, corruption and stagnation.

To say that this has not served Jews well is to be so totally blind to all this that you are simply unreachable.  To compare the achievements of Zionism with the abject failures of Palestinian nationalism is to enter the realm of the absurd.

The point I was trying to make is that if we actually care about the Arab population of the area historically known as Palestine, perhaps it would help if we stopped taking Palestinian nationalism for granted. 

I actually agree. Israel has been fortunate that no Ghandi or Mandela ever showed up to take Arafat's place. If one had, say, in 1976-- instead of the thugs who took hostages in Entebbe-- Israel would have had to withdraw from Gaza and most of the WB at the time Sadat and Begin made peace.

Zionista, what books or sources would you recommend as a good histories of Zionism and/or the establishment of modern Israel?

Q to A: Who is Marwan Barghouti?

troll rated for multiple postings.

In response to the last paragraph of your reply: The reason why the Palestinians should try non-violence is that violence isn't working and never will.

Look at the turn of events in Northern Ireland. Once the populace decided that there had to be a peaceful settlement, things started moving forward.

Why the Palestinians don't try non-violence beats the heck out of me. Les Brown, a noted motivational speaker, uses the line,"If you want to keep on getting what you are getting, keep on doing what you are doing."
Mrgavel

Would you support Syrian annexation of Lebanon and Jordan? Be careful what you wish for.

Although what you say is true enough as far as it goes, I think you are missing key aspects of what is going on, so it certainly isn't following my train of thought.

Your assumption seems to be that the Israeli government's tactical problem is how to convince people that it is serious about supporting Abbas while actually entrenching its occupation.

I don't think you really understand what it is I think about this crisis, but that's not entirely unreasonable because there's a lot of ambiguity in the current situation and that probably comes through in my writing about it at times. It's hard to capture the nuance without writing a dissertation-length post.

For instance, I think the U.S. has been foolish to go to such lengths to try to isolate Hamas. As our invasion and war did in Iraq, this has only tended to increase the appeal of the more extreme elements of Palestinian society, as the West becomes increasingly seen as the enemy. We insisted on "democratic" elections and then promptly punished the winners. Jeez. On the other hand, I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of a theocratic regime in Palestine (just as I'm not comfortable with the ascendency of religious elements in Israel). For that reason, as a short-term measure, I think some of the "supporting Abbas and the moderates" stuff isn't entirely awful, partly for the reasons you pointed out about rallying Israeli public opinion to accept change and compromise, but I also think the Palestinians will have to re-group and re-unite at some point in the not-so-distant future (this being a desireable thing).

That's why I came out so strongly in favor of the release of Barghouti (here, here and here), as I think he may have enough clout to start straightening out some of the issues of corruption in Fatah (he's known to staunchly oppose corruption) and about the militias. And because of his street cred with both groups, Fatah and Hamas, he may be the person to ultimately reunite the society. A united Palestinian society is necessary if any agreement is to be forged between Israel and the Palestinians; otherwise such agreements will lack legitimacy and then what's the point? Whether Israel (or the U.S) recognizes this or not is debateable. When it comes to the issue of Israeli intentions it's always difficult to pin them down, as there are such different intentions in different the different segments of the government and population (this is the reason behind much of Olmert's waffling), and this is much as found in Palestinian society.

If Abbas was an Israeli stooge, the Israeli government would not be embarassing him by shouting about their support for him.

On the other hand, if Abbas is to be seen by his own people to have legitmacy, his acquiesing to the Israeli/U.S. game plan isn't a particularly good option for him, particularly when the things that Israel offers have strings attached that are clearly intended to drive a further wedge between Hamas and Fatah. It doesn't really matter if Abbas really is a stooge, what matters is the perception. And what good is it try to affect Israeli public opinion by demonizing Hamas, if in order to really achieve peace, Hamas is either going to be brought along, or legitimately rejected by the Palestinian people at the polls? It may be the Israeli intent is relatively benign, but it ultimately it's carries a big risk of significant backfire, as the more Hamas is demonized, the more difficult it will ultimately be to achieve a later peace with Hamas as part of the equation. That's why I think that from the point of view of achieving what Israel wants vis a vis Palestinian public opinion, it needs to hand Abbas a really significant measure - one that benefits all of Palestinian society  (or more effectively, Abbas needs to demand it and Israel to  agree). But, such an approach would be likely to have the opposite effect on Israeli public opinion, as you point out. Hence, the ambiguity, as I mentioned earlier.

I think much of what you've written is otherwise pretty accurate.

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals..." ~~ Iraq Study Group

On June 27, 2007 - 1:03am bar_kochba132 said:

Here is what the Palestinians (and the rest of the Arab world) could have had would they have chosen, like the rest of the world, to build and move forward....

"build and move foreward" where?

Respectfully, Arthur, I think you're mis-reading what I say. Where ever did I say that the starting point should be to deal with Hamas intransigence? Or, equally baffling, where did you come up with the idea that I "tacitly accept" that " the problem is how Israel should deal with Palestinian intransigence." I might discuss, at any given time, what I think Israeli strategy vis a vis the Palestinians is or should be, but it just doesn't follow that I therefore think the Palestinians are the primary problem.

Arthur: While you really do make some good points, you seem determined to tell me what I really think, and you haven't gotten that quite right so far. (This seems particularly odd to me, as it is typically people with whom I disagree vehemently about I-P that seem prone to making interpretations that are so far off the mark. In those cases, they're often just straw man arguments; with you I just can't tell.)

I don't want to quibble further, but I do think you're in error if you believe Palestinian perceptions (about Abbas himself, or the larger issues of statehood and occupation) are irrelevant, or even merely "relatively unimportant." You seem to think that things will work out just fine if Israel is able to completely and permanently demonize Hamas. But this strategy also entails dividing the Palestinians, so I must disagree. While you're certainly correct that to solve the conflict it's crucial to change Israeli perceptions, one can't just leave the Palestinians out of the equation.

Again, you may indeed be correct in your analysis of the Israeli strategy, but you're on shaky ground in your presumption that it will have a positive effect. If it brings the Israelis closer to compromise, but at the same time, forces the Palestinians further from it, what good has been achieved? Even if an agreement under such circumstances were to be reached with Abbas, without significant and extremely generous Israeli concessions (and it's not very likely that Israel would be willing to grant these), it would be unlikely to be seen as legitimate by a significant portion of the Palestinian public, and therefore Israel would not solve it's problem with violence and terrorism.*

One has to look at the big picture, not just Israel.

MJ has a new article up that gets into some of these issues and is very insightful.

* Please note that though I refer to Israel's problem with "violence and terrorism," that doesn't mean I am unaware that Israel brings much of this on itself. (Nor should any of this be seen as indicating that I am a Hamas supporter.)

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals..." ~~ Iraq Study Group