Hamas A Mere Distraction?
Over at the TPM mothership, Josh has put up a fairly provocative posting asserting the key stumbling block to resolution between Israelis and Palestinians is the continued existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and not Hamas, which he claims is a mere "distraction" from that core question.
But this argument ignores what has, in the past, been the key route to reconciliation between the two sides - land for peace agreements. The major accords reached between Israel and its Arab neighbors (Camp David Accords with Egypt, the Oslo agreement with the PLO in 1993 and to a lesser extent, the Jordan-Israel peace agreement) were premised on the notion that Israel would trade land in return for recognition and a peace agreement. Settlements, as well as issues like Jerusalem, water, and right of return, were always treated as secondary questions to be resolved in future negotiations.
This is why Hamas's continued refusal to renounce terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist is more than a mere distraction - it's the very root of the problem today. If Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, it makes it basically impossible to negotiate a resolution on the settlements issue or any other issue for that matter. The irony of all this is that the outlines of a resolution to the conflict are largely in place: a land for peace swap the outlines of which have to some extent already been sketched at Camp David and the subsequent Taba negotations.
This is not to say that resolving the settlement issue is unimportant or that continued development of them in occupied land is an obscenity, but they are by no means the root of the problem between the two sides.
Indeed, the Palestinians reached several agreements with Israel during the 1990s (Oslo II and Wye River) that did not decisively deal with the settlements issue. What's more, the Camp David Summit in 2000 did not stumble over the issue of settlements, but instead issues related to Jerusalem and right of return. Even today, I think most observers would agree that the path to a solution on the settlements exists, or at the very least is achievable. But without political compromise by Hamas there is no hope of reaching settlement on that or on any other issue.
Perhaps there is another way to look at this. If Israel were to dismantle all of the settlements tomorrow would Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel? It's unlikely to say the least. But if Hamas were to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism would the path be open to a comprehensive political resolution? Almost certainly. It's important to remember, as we watch the terrible scenes of violence unfold in Gaza over the next few days, that political reconciliation is still achievable (after all who would have imagined after the terrible pictures from Beirut in 1983 that the handshake on the White House Lawn would have been possible a mere ten years later). But it must begin with Hamas accepting the historical inevitability of Israel and the viability of a non-military solution to the conflict.
Still trying to identify the one true "root of the problem"? Good luck.
Here's my take on the root: The whole region is f**ked.
We should pull out of Iraq, stop all aid to Israel and Egypt, and walk. We can deal with the people who have oil to sell us.
Disputes like this are taking place all over the world, but when it happens in Israel, we're all expected to stop what we're doing, gnash our teeth and ask "what more can WE do"? Jack and s**t. Do it yourselves.
December 30, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have hit the solution for our country. We have spent enough anguish trying to let Israel do anything it chooses, all apparently as reparations for not helping European Jews during the buildup to our involvement in WWII. Israel is not an American state, not an American colony, not an American territory, nor even the ancestral home of a vast percentage of Americans.
If nothing else I think if Israel realized that our commitment is not open ended, and that we are also interested in aiding the Palestinians, it would shock them into making the changes that might bring about a lasting peace there.
December 30, 2008 11:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
BBpdx,
Nothing left to argue there. Later. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out....
December 31, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Later. We can't get out fast enough.
It's like spending a week vacation with the most disfunctional family on the planet, and being expected to make it all better for them.
December 31, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, BBpdx.
Now where is the Congressperson willing to stand up and say a less impolite version of this to his 500+ naked emperor colleagues, and then deal with the resulting tsunami of hate mail and death threats from the US branch of the WestBank-settler propaganda machine, and the chorus of denunciations from the intimidated and barely functioning mainstream news media?
This is a non-existenting Congressperson. That nowhere man and his 500 zombie colleagues will look the other way, and hope that things change in Gaza. As they probably will once America has a functioning president, and Israel has its elections.
December 31, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The argument that it's all about land for peace and that the settlers are thus secondary doesn't make a lot of sense. How are the settlers not, after all, a land issue?
December 30, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I absolutely oppose any continuation of the "land for peace" formula. For the United States to endorse this approach simply puts our country on the wrong side of international law. The land that Israel occupies, and that sits under its West Bank colonies, is simply not Israeli land. It is thus not legitimately theirs to "trade" for anything.
Since the land is not Israeli land, Israel holds it only as a sort of "land hostage" in its struggle for an optimal outcome. For the United States, then, to endorse peace plans that make Israeli relinquishment of this land conditional on any kind of Palestinian reciprocation is morally equivalent to endorsing hostage-taking, and the trading of hostages for ransom.
By the same token, the United States should never endorse an approach to peace according to which Palestinian organizations might be allowed to "trade" a cessation of terrorist activity in exchange for Israeli reciprocation. Terrorism is a violation of international law, and the US position should be that adherence to international law is simply not negotiable.
The US should be unequivocally opposed to terrorism; it should be unequivocally opposed to hostage taking; it should be unequivocally opposed to the acquisition of territory by force.
The US position should be that it interprets UN 242 to require Israel to return the land occupied during the '67 war. To the extent that the occupied land is tradable, it should be the US position that the Palestinians may choose to trade some of that land for Israeli payment or concessions. If Israel gets to keep any of the territory beyond the green line, it should have to pay for it. And only the Palestinians can make a decision as to whether to accept that payment.
The occupied territories are not disputed territories. They are occupied territories. By law, the colonies must be dismantled.
December 30, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said!
December 30, 2008 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that the Israelis have never made any significant effort to live up to their end of the bargain and remove the settlements.
December 30, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that the Palistinians have never made any significant effort to live up to their end of the bargain and disarm their partisan militias.
See how easy it is to oversimplify our "root causes"? Thing is, it is complicated. We are stuck in a manichean rut of white and black hats. I think it was the late Yitzhak Rabin who said the current war is not between Jews and Arabs, but those who are willing to live with peace and those who can't live without war.
Any successful Obama administration foreign policy must approach Israel/Palestine as a response to the maximalisms of both the supporters of Hamas and of the settlers; and at the same time deal with a lucrative global arms trade that is completely, obscenely and tragically out of control.
December 31, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps there is another way to look at this. If Israel were to dismantle all of the settlements tomorrow would Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel? It's unlikely to say the least.
If Israel truly dismantled all of its West Bank colonies, everything beyond the green line, and withdrew its people and its soldiers back inside the pre-1967 border - and that would include demolishing much of the current security barrier - the result would be an epochal, radical, game-changing transformation of the conflict. Palestinian maximalists would remain, but they would immediately be starkly isolated. The global community would rally madly to the cause of a new hope for a resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 border, and Israel would have transformed itself from global outlaw to global good guy. Its prime minister would win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Adherence to UN 242, in spirit and in letter, has always been the key to the resolution of the conflict. It continues to form the international legal foundation for the position of the international community. If I could get a wish granted that Obama would do only one thing when he takes office, it would be this: He should declare that it is the position of the United States that the infamous clause in UN 242 requiring withdrawal from the territories occupied in the "recent conflict" - the 1967 war - is to be interpreted as signifying all of the territories occupied. The logical consequence of that would be that it is the position of the United States that the Israelis are in violation of that resolution.
This would be a huge, constructive step. I earnestly implore Obama to consider taking it.
December 30, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Worst of all, Abbas followed in a long tradition of previous Palestinian leaders by reacting to a far-reaching Israeli offer with an uncourageous demurral. Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801277.html
December 30, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
BorisR - Your understanding of what Olmert offered in this latest round of negotiation certainly differs from what I heard when I was in Israel last month. I heard Zeev Boim give a talk in Ma'ale Adumim and Livni in Jerusalem and both stated that Jerusalem was to continue totally under Israel's control but a "guaranteed" walkway to the Dome on the Rock was to be provided to the Palestinians. Furthermore, Palestinians would initially gain control only to about 70% of the West Bank with Israel having up to 25 years to dismantle the settlements so that ultimately Palestine might with Isreals forebearance encompass 91.7% of the West Bank
Also, Israel would retain permanent control over the Jordan border meaning the West bank becomes another open air prison like Gaza. Palestinian life will be TOTALLY controlled by Israel and it will be a state in name only. Great F*#king Deal.
December 30, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not my understanding, it's Jackson Diehl's.
December 30, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no reason to believe that Diehl's anonymous source is even slightly reliable, and there are plenty of reasons to believe that it's not.
December 30, 2008 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
BorisR - Here is Diehl's quote -" he launched into one-on-one negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in which he discussed terms for a two-state settlement going well beyond those previously offered by an Israeli government." LOL - You fell for semantic tricks. Yes they "discussed" Abbas's request for a deal more generous than previous offers but no, Olmert never "offered" such terms.
December 31, 2008 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Adherence to UN 242, in spirit and in letter, has always been the key to the resolution of the conflict".
Dan:
Your position on Resolution 242 may or may not rest on solid ground as a matter of this or that version of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this ongoing painful saga--I choose not to debate that issue in this comment--but, respectfully, as I have discussed with you in the past on here, your interpretation of Resolution 242, both "in spirit and in letter", is incompatible with the negotiations leading up to the adoption of Resolution of 242, the interpretation of Resoulution 242 by those who negotiated the language in 1967, and by the plain meaning of the language of the resolution. Forgive me for not knowing how to use the block quoting on here, but let us begin with the key provision of Resolution 242, which reads:
"Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force".
http://www.icej.nl/nieuws/vn242.htm
As written, Israel is required to withdraw forces from "territories", not "all" territories, and not "the" territories. In fairness, I understand that the French version of the resolution contains the article "the" before the word territories, which would tend to support your interpretation as a threshold matter. However, the official language of the United Nations is English, and so the English version of the resolution, if there were truly a genuine dispute, would prevail.
But there really isn't a genuine dispute, because your interpretation of Resolution 242, an interpretation that you and many others subscribe to in good faith, would nonetheless require that no meaning be given to the rest of the above-quoted paragraph which, in principal part provides that each state shall have the "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force". This language, on its face, confirms that the boundaries agreed to at the United Nations were fungible, in the sense that they had to be "secure and recognized" and "free from threats or acts of force".
Further, my explanation of Resolution 242 is corroborated by the people on the Security Council who actually negotiated Resolution 242, including representatives from the United States (former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg), Lord Caradon from Great Britain, and even the representative from the Soviet Union delegation. Their quotes are collected in the link I provide below:
http://www.icej.nl/nieuws/vn242.htm
This snippet from an interview with Lord Caradon in 1973I think leaves no doubt that Resolution 242 does not, as a matter of law, require Israel to withdraw from all territories that it occupied as a consequence of the Six Day War:
Question: "This matter of the (definite) article which is there in French and is missing in English, is that really significant?"
Answer: "the purposes are perfectly clear, the principle is stated in the preamble, the necessity for withdrawal is stated in the operative section. And then the essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be recognized. They will not be secure unless they are recognized. And that is why one has to work for agreement. This is essential. I would defend absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary . . . "
http://www.icej.nl/nieuws/vn242.htm
Indeed, even the Soviets, who severed all ties with Israel after the Six Day War, acknowledged in debate before the actual adoption of 242, that the border issue with the resolution as written would be fungible, and certainly not fixed as you, like many others now assert in good faith:
"Mr. Vasily Kuznetsov said in discussions that preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:
" ... phrases such as 'secure and recognized boundaries'. What does that mean? What boundaries are these? Secure, recognized - by whom, for what? Who is going to judge how secure they are? Who must recognize them? ... there is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far as the lines which it judges convenient." (S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)"
http://www.icej.nl/nieuws/vn242.htm
As a union attorney, I have participated in dozens and dozens of contract interpretation lawsuits and arbitrations in my career. In my professional and good faith legal opinion, based on the foregoing and with respect to age-old and well-settled rules respecting contract interpretation including the use of "parol" or external evidence where indicated and which I have utilized above, establishing that Resolution 242 does not require Israel to withdraw from each and every kilometer of territory that it occupied in 1967 would be like shooting fish in a barrel or hitting a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle.
I don't really care where the final line is drawn. I just want a peaceful resolution someday. I don't think it's realistic to expect that Israel will agree to dismantle all settlements, particularly some of those in the Jerusalem corridor. But, that said, in fairness, I submit that it is beyond the point of genuine dispute that Resolution 242, in spirit and letter, is at all consistent with what you and others have asserted in good faith since the Resolution was adopted.
Bruce
December 31, 2008 4:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wikipedia actually has what to me looks like a pretty good overview of the various debating points on the meaning of 242. I should note that I think it's particularly significant that efforts to include the phrase "all" or "the" before the resolution was adopted were apparently defeated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242
December 31, 2008 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
One thing Abba Eban also tried to defeat was the inclusion of the phrase, "emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" But he was not successful. That phrase guides the interpretation of everything that follows. If there are territories that were not in the possession of Israel before the war, and if those territories were to remain in Israel's possession after the war, then those territories would clearly have been "acquired by war".
There are several goals enunciated in the resolution, and while there can be disputes about the staging of the achievement of those goals, and what has to happen first, there can't be any dispute that the resolution makes a clear statement against the ancient notion of the "rights of conquest".
That is not to say that there cannot be disputes about the mere occupation of territories. The UN has sometime permitted the continuation of a military occupation of territories by states that those state are not recognized as possessing. But, surely, everything that goes beyond the mere occupation of territory and moves toward the acquisition of territory is affirmed as explicitly forbidden by the resolution. And clearly, the settlement of territory by a country's private citizens is in no sense part of a military occupation. It is an attempt to acquire territory. The settlements are simply and obviously illegal.
I believe your impressions of the debate, Bruce, are mistaken. At least 10 of the 15 members of the security council explicitly stated during the debate (and not just afterward) that, despite the omission of the article "the" in the English version of the resolution, it was their understanding that the resolution required withdrawal from all of the territories occupied in the recent conflict.
All of the governments engaged in post-adoption statements and diplomacy to advance their interpretation. But what has to be attended to is what was said in the debate. That determines what the people who voted to a adopt the resolution believed they were adopting.
December 31, 2008 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scai/resolution%20242.pdf
December 31, 2008 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the British were the drafters of the resolution and, again, the fact that people said what they were voting for (a common tactic in a negotiated settlement) doesn't change the fact that efforts to include "the" or "all" were rejected in a debate over the British resolution. The countries that claimed to be voting for something else could have and certainly should have, introduced their own resolutions (they may have actually done so but I don't know). But, the bottom-line I think the most compelling point is that efforts to actually change the resolution's language to comport with the definintion you and many others subscribe to was defeated in the Council and then it was adopted as it stands. I really don't think it's subject to debate under normal rules of drafting legislation. Perhaps such normal rules don't apply when it comes to Israel in the UN but that's another day's debate. In any event, I have not had time to read the Stanford law review article (have you?), but I thank you for providing it. I note there are several dueling law review articles referenced in the Wikipedia citation I link to, in addition to the Stanford article you selected. Perhaps we should agree to read each one and come back and discuss? :)
December 31, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the drafting point I raise and which I am convinced is dispositive:
"The draft resolution [242] was introduced by the United Kingdom at the 1379th meeting of the Security Council on November 16, 1967. In subsequent meetings there was sporadic mention - without particular stress on linguistic problems of the meaning to be given to the phrase under consideration here. On the question of concordance, the French representative was explicit in stating that the French text was "identical" with the English text. The Israel representative intervened at the end of the debate to state that he was communicating to his Government nothing else except the original English text of the draft resolution as presented by the original sponsor on November 16. It is known from an outside source that the sponsors resisted all attempts to insert words such as "all" or "the" in the text of this phrase in the English text of the resolution, and it will not be overlooked that when that very word "all" erroneously crept into the Spanish translation of the draft, it was subsequently removed."
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/peace%20process/guide%20to%20the%20peace%20process/on%20multi-lingual%20interpretation%20-un%20security%20counc
The author also points out what I believe to be a critical point to consider, and that is that all attempts prior to the adoption of Resolution 242 to adopt a resolution specifically requiring Israel to withdraw from all of the territories it had occupied had been rejected.
December 31, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce, I have read the Stanford article. The most relevant portions in the article are section 6 through 8.
When the plain surface reading of a legislative enactment permits more than one reasonable interpretation, one must go to record of the legislative proceedings to find evidence of legislative intent. Those proceedings in the case of UN 242 include explicit statements made by the delegates during debate on the resolution, statements that clarify the delegates' construal of the text. And in this case, at least 10 of the 15 delegates voting made it clear that they construed the withdrawal requirement to be referring to all of the territories occupied during the war. These are not statements made in a purely diplomatic or political context, subsequent to the adoption of the resolution, but are statements made during the actual debate on the final draft of the resolution, by the very people who actually voted on it. The statements are thus entitled to a large role in guiding us as to how the resolution, whose surface language lacks the precision it might have had, should be interpreted.
You are resting your case entirely on the decision to exclude "all" from the English text. That might be dispositive if that was all the evidence we had. But in fact we can see that most of the delegates present indicated their construal of the resolution to imply that despite the fact that the language excluded the word "all, they still meant all.
And there were other decisions made, including the decision to insert the phrases about the "recent conflict", and the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war". Abba Eban attempted to have these phrases deleted. But he lost. And the Stanford article describes a diplomatic note that Eban wrote in which he said, "The words "in the recent conflict" convert the principle of eliminating occupation into a mathematically precise formula for restoring the June 4 Map."
I would suggest Eban didn't want these phrases included because he knew that - "all" or no "all" - these phrases by themselves implied that the UN was resolving that Israel could not be permitted to acquire any of the territory it had occupied during the war.
Finally, we shouldn't let any these debates about whether and when Israel must withdraw its armed forces from territories occupied during the 1967 war, and from how much of the territory these forces must withdraw, to cloud the point that there is nothing at all in the resolution that so much as hints at a suggestion that Israel might be permitted to move settlers into those occupied territories. Obviously, settling territory is a move toward acquiring it, and is by no means a mere natural extension of occupying it. Can't we at least agree that nothing in UN 242 provides any support whatsoever for a claim that these settlements are legitimate? Isn't it instead the case that the clear rejection in UN 242 of the acquisition of territory by war implies that these settlements are not legitimate?
One might try to argue, as you do, that the resolution permits an extended military occupation of some of the territories occupied during the war, until a peace accord is reached. But there is no rational defense whatsoever for the settlements. The settlements go beyond occupation, and are simply illegal.
December 31, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"You are resting your case entirely on the decision to exclude "all" from the English text".
No, I'm not, and my analysis speaks for itself. To the contrary, respectfully, your analysis rests on statements that you do not cite to from politicians who, as happens regularly in these situations, failed to get passed what they wanted passed, and so as cover they then claim that their vote is for something that in fact is not on the table. Indeed, the Iraq War Resolution in Congress in 2002 is a case in point. Dan, you can't ignore what happened in the process that led to the passage of the resolution as written and proposed by the Brits, i.e you can't ignore that some nations tried without success to amend the language to change the meaning of the resolution proposed by the Brits, and you can't ignore that efforts to call for wholesale withdrawal by the Israelis from all occupied territory failed consistently from June through November of 1967.
As to the settlements, I probably hate the settler movement as much if not more than you do Dan. And I would say that many of them are in violation of the spirit of Resolution 242. I guess the difference we have is that I don't blame Israel alone for the conditions that have allowed the settler movement to thrive as it has over the last 40 years. I would begin with Jordan's bonehead decision to enter the war in '67--notwithstanding warnings from Israel to stay out of it--and I would work from there.
December 31, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm not, and my analysis speaks for itself. To the contrary, respectfully, your analysis rests on statements that you do not cite to from politicians who, as happens regularly in these situations, failed to get passed what they wanted passed, and so as cover they then claim that their vote is for something that in fact is not on the table.
Bruce, you really have to read the article. The statements to which I referred are quoted in that article.
And I disagree with your characterization of these statements. They were not statements made by the delegates to their constituents to cover their tracks on the vote. They were statements made during the actual debate, in conversation with the other delegates, including the sponsors of the resolution. These kinds of statements are frequently appealed to by jurists in determining the legislative intent behind an enactment. Yes, many of the delegates asserted that the wished the text of the resolution were clearer. But they also stated that they were satisfied that the upshot of the resolution was the same, with or without the inclusion of "all". And when they made these statements, Lord Caradon didn't say to them, "No, that reading is mistaken."
The rational interpretation of an enactment is a construction that is based on more than just the common meanings of the words in the enactment, but on the activity that took place in the creation of the enactment, including the clarificatory discussions among the legislators on what they were voting for. You are entitled to give some weight to the decision not to put the word "all" in the document. But you need to give weight to all of the other parts of the discussion as well.
I don't understand your point about what has "allowed the settler movement to thrive". I also can't understand what possible basis you could have for hedging and saying only that "many" of the settlements are illegal. Nothing Syria, Jordan or Egypt did - good or bad - constitutes any sort of invitation of settlers into the occupied territories. Nor could any of these actions be plausibly taken as establishing conditions that helped the settler movement "thrive". The settlements have been established in the face of unremitting hostility from the non-Israeli parties in the region. If the settlements have thrived in any way, it is solely a result of actions and decisions by Israelis. If a government of any country permits its people to establish settlements on land that does not belong to that country, and if it does this without assistance from any other countries, isn't that country alone at fault?
December 31, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will read the law review article, but I'm pretty comfortable with my position. I don't know if Michael Oren is one of the taboo writers or not :), but I think he does a pretty good job explaining what happened between June and November of 1967 in his book on the six-day war, and I'd recommend it.
On the settler movement, I'm not here to defend it. If you want to call every settlement a violation of Resolution 242, then so be it. I think 242 contemplates that Israel would have secure borders and I think some of the settled portions of the West Bank, for which I firmly believe the Palestinians should be compensated with alternate land from inside the green line, are in areas that provide Israel with defensible borders (which it did not have before the six-day war). I distinguish such settlements from uninhibited expansion into places that are defensible as defensive. That's the reality Dan, the cold, hard reality. Those of us who are committed to a settlement, a just and lasting one, will have to accept that the green line will not define the borders between the two states. That's what J Street says, and that's my position as well. Happy New Year Dan. You may have the final word; you've earned it. :)
December 31, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
should read "not defensible as defensive".
December 31, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Bruce. Good debate.
December 31, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce,
What do you think about the language in the preamble to 242 which recognizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war"? If the acquisition of territory by war is indeed inadmissible as the preamble states, wouldn't that preclude Israel holding on to any territory it acquired as a result of the 1967 war?
More broadly, though, I think 242 does nothing more than present a very general framework for how to solve the problem: by returning territory to the Palestinians, ending belligerency, defining borders, recognizing sovereignity, and finding a just settlement for Palestinian refugees. There's nothing very specific in 242 and therefore it's not a very useful document on which to base anything. As you know, I despair of ever finding a two-state solution that will work, because I do not believe that Israel and the Palestinians can agree on mutually satisfactory borders or on a mutually satisfactory resolution of the refugee issue (or a satisfactory resolution to a new issue that has arisen since 242, the settler issue). At this point, I think the best hope for a solution is the creation of a federation, which gives Israelis and Palestinians citizenship in separate states (the Israeli state remaining a Jewish state), but allows the people of both states to live and work across the whole territory. This solution would solve the two major intractable problems: the Palestinian refugee problem and the Israeli settlement problem. Refugees could live and work in Israeli territory; settlers could stay where they are with either Israeli or Palestinian citizenship. The solution also makes borders less significant. In fact, the only border that is truly relevant is the federation's border. The two states could have no borders (i.e., they could completely overlap in territory), being defined merely by citizenship rather than by territory. I know this is a radical concept and not one that we are close to achieving. But, in the long term, I think it is actually more possible to achieve than a mutually-accepted two-state solution. I think those who seek peace should therefore start working for this (or some other workable) alternative to what increasingly seems to be an impossible two-state solution. In my opinion, continuing to work for a two-state solution does nothing but continue the current stalemate. In my analysis, UN 242 is therefore irrelevant because, though vague, it seems to envision what I believe is now an impossible two-state solution.
PS: I think we're both about the same age (late 40s). If I recall correctly, during the 1970s and early 80s, Palestinian and Israeli societies were far more integrated than they have become today (certainly thousands of Palestinians regularly worked in Israel). I look back on this past integration as hopeful. The two-state solution is all about separation. But I think we've been headed in the wrong direction. Increasing integration is what was always needed. Separation only leads to more conflict. The federation idea emphasizes integration, while the two-state solution emphasizes separation. I think the hope for the future is in integration. Separation will simply lead to continued and ever more bitter strife.
December 31, 2008 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Purple State:
Very fair question. I think that the response to the preamble's significance is simple, and that is that it correctly sets out a universal principle, and then it must be read in light of the language of the succeeding resolution drafted by Great Britain and negotiated by the parties.
I know you genuinely favor a binational state and I appreciate that you are well-meaning in urging that outcome. I think I have previously written that, perhaps in a century or so, maybe less, such an outcome might become a reality. I don't think we're anywhere close to moving in that direction, even though I don't believe that Jews and Palestinians are in any way natural enemies of one another.
That said, one of my pet presumptions--which I should really try and develop and share with folks for the purpose of getting some feedback--is that it is understandable but not necessarily accurate to extrapolate into the future by snapshot. I guess my point is that, so often in history, things happen that nobody would have anticipated as being possible ten, five, or even one year before monumental change occurs. An easy recent example is my hunch that nobody predicted that gas prices would, for the moment, be less than two dollars a gallon at the end of the year. In any event, it is with this presumption that I continue to believe that a two-state solution is both realistic and worth striving for. And I also genuinely believe that PE Obama will have the support of 90 plus percent of the American people if he does what he has pledged to do, and that is to roll up his sleeves and start applying real pressure in an even-handed way to implement a two-state resolution, with a Palestinian state sharing Jerusalem with Israel as its capital.
By the way, we are indeed about the same age. I'm turning 50 this year and my oldest daughter has taunted me with that reality by paying for my registration to do a triathalon with her in September, which is the month before I become eligible for my very own AARP card. I say this only because she has also announced that my rigid training regimen begins tomorrow, and I'm in the last throes of semi-gluttony.
And, perhaps, in thirty years, when we finally have some time on our hands and I'm up north with you getting fly-fishing lessons from the master (you really should post more about your fishing exploits because I feel like I'm standing next to you when you do share your upstream experiences), the snapshot will have changed and changed again, and maybe that binational federation of two people who deserve to live in peace will become a reality. I don't rule it out. Purple State, my father is a very quiet man believe it or not, but when he says things I listen. One of his favorite lines, one which he did not make up, is that man plans and G-d laughs. He's right.
Happy New Year, and I know we both hope and pray for peace.
Bruce
December 31, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce, I get my AARP card 12 months after you do (we apparently share November birthdays), but if you're doing a triathalon, I'm sure you must be younger than I am!
Any time you'd like to try flyfishing let me know. In the meantime you might get a kick out of this website:
www.theflyfishingrabbi.blogspot.com
I discovered it when my brother-in-law asked if I'd teach my nephew to fish because, as my brother-in-law said, "we Jews don't know how to fish." I was sure my brother-in-law had been misled by a pernicious slander, and the good Rabbi proved me right! By coincidence, Rabbi Eisenkramer addresses this pressing topic of the Jews and fishing in his most recent post. Another stereotype deservedly debunked!
December 31, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again:What does Hamas want?
And why should Hamas recognize those who refuse to recognize it, and who financed a small army to overturn it's victory in open elections?
I'll ask the same question of you: What does Israel want?
Is its interest in democracy or demography? You can't have both. And why should anyone living in a free society support Jewish racialism? Why would we support it for you any more than we did P.W. Botha's National Party, Le Pen's National Front or Haider' Freedom Party?
Is this where Jewish exceptionalism has brought us?
Israel is a man standing on another man's throat trying to explain to the rest of the assembled that he needs to know what will happen if he releases the pressure. And he has a gun in his hand, while the man on the ground has a pen knife.
And we're left to ask the awkward question: Why is your foot on his throat?
Nir Rosen is good
That is: he's honest.
December 30, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our involvement only makes the problems worse. The peoples involved need to solve their own problems. It's odd that we pay more attention to Israel's "right to exist" and to the preservation of the Palestinian "nation" than we do even to the native peoples who populated our own continent. Nations don't have the right to exist. They have the right to defend themselves. If they can't figure out a way to exist as circumstances change, they'll go the way of many others that are long gone and who cries for any of them?
December 30, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
More concisely: "Arm Israel and then let them do what they want."
That is your point, right? Pretty even-handed.
December 31, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cohen I think you are being disingenuous. The problem is the settlements. After Oslo many Palestinians were optimistic and Arafat was their national leader. But then the settlement expansion continued. Over the next 8 years it became increasingly clear that Arafat was unable to deliver. The relentless expansion of the settlements continued. When the second intifata erupted, Arafat was powerless to stop it. His mandate had been lost.
Five years later without let up in settlement expansion the PA was thoroughly discredited. They had nothing to show their people. At this point the right wing Likudnik Sharansky caught Bush's ear and insisted on elections. Their neocon followers in government pushed US policy into forcing those elections. As was predicted by many observers in Israel (and was probably well understood in Sharon's government) Hamas won.
Over night, Israel then could say that the problem was Hamas and therefore there is not opportunity for negotiations of any kind. Michael, the Hamas victory was pushed by the Israelis probably very likely so that they could continue will settlement expansion.
And now Cohen comes here to babble about why the problem is Hamas and not the continued expansion of the settlements. He now proclaims, the settlements could easily be delt with but first we must crush Hamas. Hamas had the support of less than 10% of the Palestinians in 1992 -- why didn't Israel deal with the problem then? A rational observer can only conclude that they didn't deal with the problem then because Israel want the West Bank for itself.
December 30, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The settlements are part of the problem but far from the main problem. Just like suicide bombers and terror is not the main problem for Israel - despite each party saying otherwise.
With a peace agreement each of these is quite resolvable. We dismantle territories or swap lands they fight terrorists. Each party uses those as excuses because neither party can really accept the existence of the other. IMO, the main issue is the Palestinians accepting formally a Jewish state that will not absorb its refugees and Israelis accepting a Palestinian state on a good portion of territory that its used to seeing as Israel on its maps. Not to mention that the capital of that Palestinian state will be Jerusalem (a symbol for many Jews).
Only once each party is really ready to accept the other and the sacrficices that go with it - no refugees (or limited amount) and a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the majority of territories taken in 67' will there be peace. Terrorism, settlements all just code words for we are not yet ready to accept you.
January 1, 2009 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Same old endlessly recycled Israeli-propaganda non-starters in slightly kinder and gentler form. Of course the settlements are a major stumbling block to any lasting deal between the two sides in Palestine. They should have been dismantled in 1994 and Rabin better protected from the murderous maniacs that live in them. The main purpose of these fortresses for plunderers to begin with was to turn the West Bank into a pastrami sandwich so that land-for-peace there would be impossible. This doesn't mean that peace is indeed impossible, and that the settlers can never be dealt with. But, Israelis have to finally face the enormous task of taking on the fanatics and terrorists within their own ranks, just as the Palestinians have to finally realize the hardline Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists such as Hamas must be marginalized and better controlled or radically reformed or there can be no lasting peace. Control does NOT mean ZERO incidents of violence, however. Held to that ridiculously impossible and bogus standard, Israel itself would never have been created.
December 30, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Finally, a fairly intellegent posting here at TPM, unlike the things we read from MJ, Jo-Anne and the rest of the gang.
Must remember one thing, Dan K, Seth and the rest of you.....the Palestinians use the term "Naqba" - The Catastrophe, to refer to the 1948 war, NOT the 1967 war. It is the creation of the state of Israel that they object to. Thus, you are all PARTLY right, it is the settlements they object to, but not primarily those in Judea/Samaria...but settlements like Tel-Aviv, Ashdod, Ashqelon, Beersheva and all the rest of the towns WITHIN the pre-67 lines. This is what the Palestinian media calls them. This is what the Palestinians say. "Big Benevelont White Men From Acorss the Sea" like MJ, Jo-Ann, Josh and the rest of the deluded "progressive" Jews simply focus on Judea/Samaria because they think this makes the problem soluable with a piece of paper, when in reality it can NOT be solved by a signed agreement and will, instead, need a long-term change in the Arab world away from their extremist Islamic Jihad mentality which they have today.
December 30, 2008 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Must remember one thing, Dan K, Seth and the rest of you.....the Palestinians use the term "Naqba" - The Catastrophe, to refer to the 1948"
"If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
David Ben Gurion
So do I.
Get of your imaginary high horse.
December 31, 2008 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure what you point is. I agree with the quote attributed to Ben-Gurion. But do you think he was prepared to dismantle Israel so you can feel better?
December 31, 2008 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
"God Promised it to us" You think he was criticizing his own people?
He continues:
"They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out."
Benny Morris
From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.
Ben-Gurion was a “transferist”?
Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.
I don’t hear you condemning him.
Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.
But of course, there is no god. And if there were, why should she care way or the other?
Ben Gurion's argument is racist. Ben Gurion is racist. Morris' argument is racist. Morris is racist.
Zionism is Racism. Zionists are racists.
December 31, 2008 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let us be clear. The Israelis stole the lands of the Palestinians in 1948. It makes no difference that "Yahweh promised it to us" or that they had occupied those lands in the past. They had not done so for almost 2000 years, during which time the lands had belonged to the ancestors of the Palestinians. You may protest the unrighteousness of the dispossession of the Israelites, but that was not the doing of the Palestinians. It was done by the Romans in 70 AD. The Jewish claim to Palestine has no more legitimacy than the claim of the Welsh and Cornish to England. That said, I do not dispute the legitimacy of the state of Israel or its nominal right to exist, but they have no legal claim to anything outside of the 1968 borders. The existence of settlements in the West Bank is a violation of both Israeli and international law.
December 31, 2008 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The Israelis stole the lands of the Palestinians in 1948"
Not entirely true. My grandfather, purchased his land from a Palestinian that he was friends with up until each of there deaths. My grandfather was not the only one.
Your claim that Palestinians owned all the lands in Israel before 1948 and that they were all just stolen by the Israelis is a pure lie.
January 1, 2009 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
If there is no G-d, then what is wrong with "racism"? It seems you have a preference for a world without racism, apparently, but that is merely your opinion. Hitler also was an atheist and he was a racist. So was Stalin.
Population transfer was and is not considered a bad thing around the world. The Greek Cypriots have given up trying to go back to the areas the Turks occupied in Cyprus, there were mass transfers of population between Greece and Turkey in the 1920's, India and Pakistan in the 1940's (Pakistan is a state set up on a religious/ethnic basis which them expelled and dispossed millions of Hindus-what do you think about that?),eastern European ethnic Germans expelled after World War II, no one is talking about reversing the mass population transfers between Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Kossovo, in the former Yugoslavia. The Palestinians brought their refugee condition on themselves because they started the war.
Or are you one of these "progressives" that support all nationalist movements around the world except that of the Jews?
December 31, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Population transfer was and is not considered a bad thing around the world."
Israelis defend the forced transfer as moral.
And they and their defenders call themselves modern and liberal.
The one thing more than any other that is making this crisis difficult to resolve is the moralizing hypocrisy of Zionists.
Few defend the expropriation of land from aboriginal people in the US and Australia. Even fewer would grant the European newcomers moral superiority over the earlier inhabitants. But that is precisely what Josh Marshall and those like him claim.
"It was a necessary crime" His words, not those of a settler.
"If there is no G-d, then what is wrong with 'racism'? "
That's a more honest description of the moral philosophy behind the founding of Israel: pre-modern and not conversant in the language of rights.
December 31, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
That was a real zinger....dismissing my question about why your preference for opposing racism is any better than someone else who does like racism, in the absence of a belief in G-d, as being "pre-modern". It'll take me a while to get over that put-down. But, while we are waiting, I will still wait for an answer of why your opposition to racism is better than someone else's narrative approving of it.
December 31, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
A Jew supporting ethnic cleansing. It would appear that I am correct about the existence of God or he would have struck you down where you stand. You shame your ancestors, your people, and those who died in the Holocaust. You have become your oppressors.
Anti-racism does not rely on the existence of deity, but is based in the secular principles underlying all true democracies. It is based on the premise of universal human rights and the equality of all people. Perhaps you need the threat of an angry god to behave as a decent human being (which does not seem to be working very well right now), but I do not.
December 31, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The modern logic of rights is not seen -by the majority of those who engage it- as requiring the existence of a god.
It wasn't a put down, it was a simple statement of fact.
December 31, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
This argument has some merit. Hamas certainly is a problem. Unfortunately, Israel has been saying for about 30 years in one way or another that the "settlements" would be disbanded, etc... they have stubbornly refused to do so during most of that time. During most of the past 40 years Israel has been aggressively expanding the "settlements" and encouraging the growth of them. Yes, some of these "settlements" have been closed, but most have not. I think any impartial observer would have to recognize that it is and has been for a long time the settlements that are the major impediment to progress toward peace despite the ongoing outrages perpetrated by Hamas. Josh has it right on this question. It's time to start being honest about what is going on over there.
December 30, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
An impartial observer should probably also have to conclude that Israel itself has no intention of ever giving back any of the land it has colonized, and that all of the various crises, diplomatic gambits, peace initiatives and the rest are just one long misdirection play, gamed out across decades, aimed at getting people to ignore or be distracted from the ongoing accumulation of territory. Israel and its friends making us all look stupid.
Expansion via settlement is not just some kind of crazy right-wing activity that Israel's governments would like to control, but can't. The empirical evidence suggests that it is the consistent policy of Israel's government to expand, reflecting the wishes of a broad spectrum of the Israeli public. After all, the colonial settlements expanded at their most rapid clip during the Oslo period in the 90's. Israel uses peace processes to create the political space for more expansion.
The different political camps all play their appointed roles. Liberals cry and wail as they steal the land; the religious wingers shout defiance and biblical legends as they expand. But it comes to the same thing. Expansion is in Israel's DNA. The country will continue to expand until the international community forces it to stop. It will never give back any territory until the international community forces it to give back that territory.
I have come to believe that many of Israel's defenders here in the US, nominally of the center and left, frequently and routinely lie about their attitudes. They claim to oppose expansion; but I think they are often just bullshitting us. They covet the land as much as the religious guys who call it "Judea" and "Samaria".
The rollback of Israeli expansion is always going to come later. Now Michael Cohen comes to us, also claiming to find expansion "obscene", but also proposing that dealing with the expansion must happen later.
December 31, 2008 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Israel settles Sinai - dismantles.
Israel settles Gaza - dismantles.
Way for Israel to move forward with its exapnsionist policy.
Israel has shown time after time that it is capable of forcifully removing its population from territories it had illegally settled. In the West Bank Israel realizes it will have to give most up. So yes, they try and to minimillay expand the cities they have already created in hopes that when the time comes the facts on the ground will force a land swap instead of complete removal of the Jewish popluation in the settled areas. However, if the final issue to bring an everlasting peace is to dismantle a certain settled area, even one that had been expanding since Oslo, have no doubt that Israel would dismantle it.
The settlements are not the main stumbling block -it is in fact probably the only part of the conflict that is solvable. The Right of Return, Jerusalem, recognizing each others right to exist are much harder issues for both peoples.
January 1, 2009 3:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The entire policy of "settlements" in occupied territory is wrong. Israel should dismantle all of them now instead of using them as a bargaining chip while at the same time expanding them as it has done for decades.
January 1, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Youre right. the settlemens are wrong. I am all for dismantling them. You wont hear any quarrels from me about that. But they are tool. Like terror is for the Palestinians. Palestinians should stop blowing up people in restraunts and target civillians with rokets. Israel should dismantle all settlements. There are a lot of shoulds. but neither will do it. My reasoning i stated in a post below in response to purple state.
January 1, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The irredentist settler movement is not a complete negative for the Israeli government, which is why they won't actively move against them. Rabid terrorists at the expanding edge of settlements, who view their claim to the land as indisputable, and who view any Palestinian as having no claim at all, are the only thing that keeps Israel growing.
Israel needs the terrorist mentality that is fostered in the outlying settlements. Anyone less than fanatic-terroristical might get a soul and say, Hey--maybe we DON'T have an indisputable right to the land.
Tools for the job. The goal is permanent expansion of Israel, and the irredentists are a necessary evil. Not even evil, to some people. RIGHTEOUS.
January 3, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, brilliant Mitchell. In some hypothetical situation where Israel withdraws from all the settlements and returns to the 67 borders and allows for some limited right of return and so on, then there would still be Hamas dead-enders, therefore it's all their fault that there's no peace.
Actually, there's nobody forcing Israel to commit war crimes, no matter what extremist Palestinians do. They don't have to keep stealing land, they can return the land they stole, and they can limit their military activities to genuine self-defense against Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians inside the Green line (which is where they should be). And they don't have to inflict collective punishment on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
December 30, 2008 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hamas/PA doesn't have to inflict collective punishment on Israel, either.
All this one-sided rhetoric about "war crimes" by Israel, but no criticism of terrorism from the Palestinians doesn't advance the dialog.
The settlements are a problem, I agree. Israel has offered to remove most of them, and it should have stopped the expansion at the very least.
But, as another poster pointed out, Hamas and many others want the Jews out of any part of the Middle East. The "pre-67" borders are not acceptable to them.
A failure to recognize and account for this will preclude a real discussion or a real solution.
December 31, 2008 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dcsmithie, I agree that Hamas and other Palestinian factions don't have to commit terrorist acts against the Israelis and should be condemned for it just as Israel should be condemned for its war crimes, but I'm not responding to someone who blames both sides for their crimes in an evenhanded way--I'm responding to Mitchell Cohen. The fact that I recognize Palestinians are also guilty is indicated when I talked about legitimate Israeli self defense against Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians.
And as for the term "war crime", I use it both because it's accurate and because I haven't noticed any reluctance to use the term "terrorism" when talking about Palestinian atrocities. Both sides have committed atrocities, and sensible people know this, yet somehow in mainstream American political circles this rather basic fact tends to go unmentioned. Only atrocities against Israelis are deemed worthy of moral outrage--Israeli actions are at worst, deemed an overreaction (which is another rhetorical problem--Israel never initiates violence it seems, they only respond, sometimes going a little too far, totally understandable, ya know, given the savagery of their opposition, etc....)
December 31, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
But if Hamas were to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism would the path be open to a comprehensive political resolution? Almost certainly.
I'm not sure what "the path would be open" amounts to. There are all sorts of paths one could probably take to a resolution. We know roughly where they all lead, but it is not obvious what steps have to be taken first. Why do we need to point to one factor above others as the "root of the problem"?
Here's a problem: Until Israel has a defined border, what does the recognition of Israel amount to? What is Israel and what is not Israel? How can we ask Palestinians to recognize Israel and respect its territorial integrity if they don't even know where Israel is and how far its territory extends?
The international community has made a big, big mistake in punting on this issue for so long. The international community essentially created Israel by recognizing it following the 1948 war. But it didn't finish the job, and it "created" a unshaped cloud of a state without actual, defined borders. That was stupid. The community needs to finish what it started. It is not up to Israel to feel its way to its own borders. Enough with the bit-by-bit land-grabbing! The situation is utterly absurd.
It seemed in 1967 that the pieces were in place, and that the international community was prepared to tell Israel "this far and no farther" with respect to the Green Line. But it couldn't get its act together to cross the "t"s and dot the "i"s. It's time to finish the job. It's our job. Not Israel's job. Not the Palestinians' job. The legitimacy of Israel's existence depends entirely on its legal manufacture by the International community in 1948, and its borders derive their legitimacy from the same supreme legal force.
This problem cannot be solved by the contending parties negotiating a resolution. The power asymmetry is too great, and the weaker party can never get a resolution that meets reasonable standards of justice simply by horse-trading over hostage-land with the hostage-takers, since the latter hold all the cards.
It is time for the international community to tell the parties where the border lies. Tell Israel that the international community recognizes the Green Line as the border, and holds that that the Israeli colonies in the occupied territories are in violation of international law. Give Israel a date by which to get out, and commit to universal economic, trade and travel sanctions if they are not out by that date.
Tell Hamas and the other Palestinian parties the same thing. What they lost in 1948 is gone for good. But what they lost control of in 1967 is still theirs, and the community is determined to restore it to their control. The whole thing, along with the border along the Jordan river.
These are two very small political and territorial entities. It's preposterous that we have let them violently hash the problem out for so long. Enough! We need to make a declaration, and then impose it on them.
December 30, 2008 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You make some interesting arguments.
What about the so-called right of return?
December 31, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is something that will require negotiation. But I would hope that a final settlement would contain something like the following items. (I'm not a lawyer, and I'm sure a lawyer could do a better job with the legal terminology):
1. Formal recognition by Israel and the international community that property, including land, was illegally expropriated from the Palestinian Arab inhabitants of Palestine as part of the historical process by which the State of Israel was created. For those illegal acts, Israel, Great Britain and the broader international community share in the blame.
2. Formal recognition by Israel and the international community that Palestinians whose property was illegally taken are entitled by right to either a return of the property and a return to the property, or compensation for what was taken.
3. An agreement by the Palestinian governing entity, on behalf of the Palestinian people, to forego perpetually claims on the lost land, and to accept compensation in its place.
4. The establishment of an international judicial body to assess Palestinian lost property claims, and to set appropriate amounts of compensation for lost property and for others damages.
5. The establishment of an international fund, with both private and public dollars, to assist Israel, other states and the broader international community in the payment of awards to Palestinians by the judicial body.
December 31, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah yes, Israel as the perennial blushing bride, surely willing to *eventually* give away her treasure, if only her suitor does *everything* according to her wishes and whims. So close but yet so far. Keep trying, Pals, and someday you'll get what you want!
psst, Hamas seems to have figured out that someday never comes.
Nice post though. I'm sure it'll go over as great sounding pablum at all the 'right-center' blogs, and other such whitewashes.
December 31, 2008 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is why Hamas's continued refusal to renounce terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist is more than a mere distraction - it's the very root of the problem today.
The root of the problem is and always has been the fact that a Jewish state cannot exist with a large Palestinian population. To maintain a Jewish state, therefore, the Palestinians have to be gotten rid of. The Palestinians, however, are not content to be gotten rid of and hence the conflict continues.
One reason Hamas does not want to recognize the right of Israel to exist is because, in doing so, it would legitimize the concept of a Jewish state and therefore also legitimize the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which is a necessary precondition to Israel existing as a Jewish state.
But this argument [that settlements are a "key stumbling block" to a resolution of the I-P problem] ignores what has, in the past, been the key route to reconciliation between the two sides - land for peace agreements. The major accords reached between Israel and its Arab neighbors . . . were premised on the notion that Israel would trade land in return for recognition and a peace agreement.
Land for peace has never been a realistic approach to reconciling the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has consistently taken land away from the Palestinians and it continues to do so today via settlement of the West Bank. Israel has shown no sign of wanting to give up any land for peace. At best, it might stop its taking of more Palestinian land for peace, but it certainly isn't offering to "trade" anything it already holds for peace. Cohen is full of contradictions here: if land for peace really is the key to a solution, then it's important that the land left for the Palestinians is valuable. But as the land is reduced in size thanks to its continued appropriation for settlements, then its value declines. So if Cohen thinks land for peace is really the answer, then he should see that the settlements aren't a minor problem.
Of course, the Palestinians see both the settlements and the ongoing occupation as signs that Israel isn't serious about peace or justice for the Palestinians. And if Israel isn't a serious negotiating partner, why waste time negotiating at all? Better to resist as Hamas has done than participate in the elaborate farce that is the so-called peace process.
Settlements, as well as issues like Jerusalem, water, and right of return, were always treated as secondary questions to be resolved in future negotiations.
Maybe this is why all past peace negotiations have failed? Maybe these so-called secondary questions aren't really so secondary?
December 31, 2008 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"One reason Hamas does not want to recognize the right of Israel to exist is because, in doing so, it would legitimize the concept of a Jewish state and therefore also legitimize the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which is a necessary precondition to Israel existing as a Jewish state"
How? I dont understand the logic. If Hamas recognizes Israel and supoprts a 2 state solution - how does that legitimize ethnic cleansing of Palestinians - that would and could only help avoid the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Hamas has one interest and that is to set up a fanatical religious muslim regime in all of the territory that is today Israel and Palestine. Why ignore this clearly stated goal?
January 1, 2009 5:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Palestinians' primary position has always been that the creation of a Jewish state unjustly disenfranchised the Arab population. Palestinians further have always maintained that they have a right to return to their homes in Israel, something that Israel's status as a Jewish state makes unlikely. For these reasons, the Palestinians are reluctant to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. On the other side, the Israelis have made Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state a central demand of theirs because by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, the Palestinians would also be agreeing to Israel's remaining a Jewish state and that would weaken Palestinian claims to a right of return.
January 1, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. Understood. That is why i mantain that the settlements are not the main problem but each party's ability to accept the existence of the other.
January 1, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. I think the settlements create significant complications, but the root of the problem is, and always has been, a disagreement over the legitimacy of a Jewish state existing on land that Arabs feel they have at least as much right to inhabit as Jews.
January 1, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
everything you said you can be said about the Palestinians as well... for example:
Actually, there's nobody forcing Palestinians to commit war crimes, no matter what Israel does. They don't have to keep laucnhing rockets onto civillian population, they can return non violent resistence, and they can limit their military activities, if any to soldiers in there territories. And they don't have to inflict collective punishment on Israeli civilians in Sderot, Ashdod, Ashqelon, etc etc etc.
"Firing rockets into civilian areas with the intent to harm and terrorize Israelis has no justification whatsoever, regardless of Israel's actions in Gaza," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division"
Why cant we all say that?
January 1, 2009 4:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Land for peace has never been a realistic approach to reconciling the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has consistently taken land away from the Palestinians and it continues to do so today via settlement of the West Bank."
In Gaza Israel removed its settlements despite there expansion post Oslo. Oslo changed things forever despite certain continued expansion in the West Bank. Land for peace is the only way this will be settled - the question really now is what land. Israel is trying to create facts on the ground so that it can mantain some of its existing settlements and is trying to make those settlemnts bigger and will then offer to swap those areas for unsettled land in Israel. Whether it will work or not, who knows. But if the last peice to peace is dismantling a certain part of a settlement that had been expanded after Oslo then that settlment will be dismantled. Israel has proven in its history its ability to dismantle settlements. As i wrote elsewhere each side first needs to accept the existence of the other. I dont think either party has.
"Israel has shown no sign of wanting to give up any land for peace."
Sure it has. With Egypt and Sinai it has created the blue print. In Gaza they removed settlements. Despite the current expansion, it could be much worst. IMO. now its about improving the facts on the ground for the day a swap will need to be made, its not about ditching the idea of land for peace.
"Cohen is full of contradictions here: if land for peace really is the key to a solution, then it's important that the land left for the Palestinians is valuable. But as the land is reduced in size thanks to its continued appropriation for settlements, then its value declines."
It continues to be reduced because there is no peace. You make it seem as if nothing is irrversible. Despite Israel trying to create certain facts so that when the day comes it can try and retain parts of the lands currently settled, but the bottom line is that for peace Israel will dismantle settlements. It has done it in the past and will do it in the future.
"So if Cohen thinks land for peace is really the answer, then he should see that the settlements aren't a minor problem."
They are a minor compared to the bigger problem of first accepting each others existence. The issue of settlments is solvable - whether through dismantling them or swapping other areas.
January 1, 2009 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Learn something.
The Palestinians owe you nothing,January 1, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
thanks. but nothing new here. dov weisglass can say what he wants. Sharon is in coma and cant rally influence much nowadays. In Isral governments change all the time. Not all think like Dov weisglass. So even if that was Sharons intention, all hes really succeeded in doing is to get rid of the settlements in Gaza - what many Israelis believe is the first step in the dismantlement of settlements, not the last.
As for the Palestinians owing me something, i dont understand your point. Israel is here. And isnt going anywhere. Palestinians could deal with it or not. Its up to them. The same for the Israelis. Neither accepts the other. For any real positive change both will have to accept the other. If your point is that the Palestians dont have to accept me - because they owe me nothing, then fine, but i dont see how that could ever help bring peace to the area.
January 1, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
" Israel is here. And isnt going anywhere."
No. Israel as it has been defined for 60 years is going away, and not quickly enough. But the jews are staying, It's their home.
The distinction is something you don't understand.
There are already Israeli arabs. When there are Jewish Palestinians we'll have progress.
And the quote is from the time of the withdrawal. He was describing the reasons the decision was made.
January 1, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand that Sharon may have had his own reaosons. But lucky for all of us Sharon will not always be Israel's prime minister. Israelis know elections all to well and seem to enjoy changing the leadership quite often. So while that may be sharons reasoning, other leadership may have different ideas.
You hope Israel will go away and thats fair. I wouldnt be against a one country for all people if i thought it could happen in the near future. But it wont. Jews are not ready for it. Most Jews are still paranoid. That wont go away anytime soon. So while we can always strive for the best and most just solution sometimes we have to settle for second best which in this case is 2 states for 2 people. If in 50 years the memory of the holocaust and Jewish history is lessened to a point where Jews lose there paranoia then maybe Israel and Palestine can become the United Mid East States. Until then Israel isnt going aywhere despite your wishes. If you want Israel to go away i think having 2 states first will get you there faster.
January 1, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The land remaining for a Palestinian state has continually declined in area, even with the pullout from Gaza. At the time of the UN partition, Arabs owned about 90% of the land of Israel-Palestine. After the partition, only about 40% was reserved for the Palestinian Arabs. After the 1948 war, the territory remaining for Palestinians was cut almost in half, to just over 20% of the land. And now that 20% has been innundated with growing Israeli settlements, the area of which continues to increase even with the dismantling of the Gaza settlement. From a Palestinian perspective the Israelis seem intent on taking more of their land and the settlement policy only strengthens that perception. While I agree settlements aren't the primary issue, they are a significant problem that signals to the Palestinians that the Jewish state is committed to expanding its borders and further disenfranchising the Arab inhabitants of Israel-Palestine. Because of this, settlements are a significant obstacle to peace.
January 1, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that they are an obstacle. But how significant i sometimes think is purposely blown up as to hide the real reasons for avoiding peace. The same for Israel. Until terror stops we wont talk to you. Blah. Terror is used as an excuse. Its something the people can see, feel, fear. Its also the fault of the other side. So its convenient to use as the reason to avoid making significant steps toward peace. I feel the same about the settlements with the Palestinians. Its something they see and feel and the other side is at fault. Ever since the PA was forced to publicly recognize Israel, its easier to say settlements fault than i really still cant accept Israel or giving up my families right to go back home. Both terror and settlements are obstacles, no doubt, and used as tools by leadership to provoke the other and continue the distrust between the people and have each side blame the other for why there is no peace. But each imo is quite solvable and each party's leadership knows it. Palestinians have been able to stop the crazies when they wanted to and Israel has been able to dismantle settlements. what each side really needs is a change - a major one. Id even like to say a change as significant as the one the US is hoping for with the election of Obama. When that happens, and i truly believe it will (hopefullly sooner rather than later), we will have a chance. Each side needs courageous leadership willing to guide the people into accepting the others right to exist. When that happens settlemets and terror will be solved.
January 1, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink