Roger Cohen: An Even Better Time for Tough Love
Roger Cohen asks the right questions about how Barack Obama ought to address a Middle East that lands with a thud on his plate next week:
Does regarding the Middle East almost exclusively through the prism of the war on terror make sense? Does turning a blind eye to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank that frustrate a two-state solution, and the Israeli blockade of Gaza that radicalizes its population, not undermine U.S. interest in bolstering moderate Palestinian sentiment?Should policy not be directed toward reconciling a Palestinian movement now split between Fatah and Hamas, without which no final-status peace will be possible? Beyond their terrorist wings, in their broad grass-roots political movements, what elements of Hamas and Hezbollah can be coaxed toward the mainstream?...
Asking these questions does not alter America's commitment to Israel's security within its pre-1967 borders, which is and should be unwavering. It does not change the unacceptability of Hamas rockets or the fact the Hamas Charter is vile. But it would signal that the damaging Bush-era consensus that Israel can do no wrong is to be challenged.
Teasingly, Cohen starts by noting that all the players mentioned as putative Mideast advisers are Jews. That's an attention-getter but it's not really the point. The point is that Messrs. Ross, Steinberg, Kurtzer, and Indyk have been around the Israel-Palestine block so many times, with so little to show for it, they do not inspire hope of the tough love that Israel (and the Palestinians) need. The point is that because Israel threw caution to the hot desert winds while Bush broadcast the green light (to make up for having denied Israel use of Iraqi airspace when they wanted to bomb Iran's nuclear site last summer?), tough love is more urgent than ever (and it's been urgent for a very long time).
I still hope for the best, including: start dismantling West Bank settlements; hold back on military aid; bring in the Arab League behind the 2002 Saudi peace proposal. But if Obama were to appoint a economics team of men and women who were gung-ho deregulators during the last eight years, it would also be right to say: Wha?
What continues to trouble me is Congress blind allegiance to Israel, no matter how egregious Israels actions, nor how our unconditional love of Israel impacts us globally. Even Franken today backed Israel unconditionally. I guess the J Street has a long row to hoe to overcome AIPAC and other Israeli back doors to Congress.
January 12, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roger Cohen is obviously an anti-semite.
His no-brainer observations and practical suggestions have no place in America's political discourse!
January 12, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Roger Cohen, Todd Gitlin or anyone else thinks that any American administration will force Israel to dismantle settlements or will hold back on military aid absent a real peace treaty, they are seriously deluding themselves. It will never happen.
Those who hold out hope for this sort of thing don't have a clue about just how traumatic an uprooting of settlements would be for Israelis, even those who are not necessarily sympathetic to the settlers. This ain't Gaza we're talking about - an unlovely patch of sand which few Jews felt any emotional tie to. The West Bank is the heart of Biblical Israel. There is only one way Israel could ever be persuaded to put itself through the wrenching civil and political hell that giving it up would entail, and that is if the Palestinians, the wider Arab world and the international community at large managed to convince the Israeli public that things had really changed and acceptance and peace were there for the taking.
There is a majority constituency in Israel for cutting a deal with the Palestinians and everyone knows that dismantling settlements is part of that deal. But people are kidding themselves if they think Israel will ever do it without a fundamental change in the nature of the conflict. Right now, I don't see it happening any time soon. As I've argued before, better to focus on the wider Arab world and figuring out how to make the Saudi plan a workable framework for talks.
January 12, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israelis say they will not dismantle the settlements until Palestinians take such-and-such steps first. Palestinians say they cannot take such-and such steps unless Israelis first credibly commit to dismantling the settlements. This is never going anywhere. There is too much suspicion, paranoia and genocidal hatred on each side. And as Brad the Dad's post suggests, there are substantial portions of each community that possess goals that are utterly irreconcilable with the goals of even the most reasonable parties on the other side, and for whom the steps that most people agree will be necessary to arrive at a sustainable two-state solution will be deeply traumatic, making it unlikely that either party can succeed in enforcing an accord on their own people, even if they were to achieve one.
The only way out here, it seems to me, is for the international community to remove the Israelis and Palestinians from the diplomatic process, and use a firmer hand. The international community, by which I mean primarily the United States, Canada, the Europeans, the Russians, and the Arab and Muslim states in the region must agree among themselves on the shape of a final resolution to the conflict. I think they should develop a plan that is quite specific, and which describes down to the neighborhood who will hold precisely what parcels of land in Jerusalem and the rest of Israel-Palestine when the settlement has been reached, and the nature of the political control over that will be exerted over that territory. They should then run the plan unanimously through the UN Security Council, and take it to the contending parties as a statement of and august international decision and requirement on the parties. The implementation of the plan should be based on a timetable with specified stages, again not to be negotiated among the Israelis and Palestinians, but imposed upon them. Sanctions should kick in automatically if timetable milestones are passed and one or both parties have not met their obligations.
January 12, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're in cloud-cuckoo land if you think such a cockamamie idea would work. Israel is a sovreign state. It would never allow the "international community" to decide where its borders should be. You know nothing about Jewish history if you think an Israeli government would ever countenance such a thing.
Israel was founded to protect Jews from a world that had shown that it had neither the will nor the means to protect Jewish lives. It is absolutely baked into the DNA of every Israeli that the key strategic decisions about the security of the state are to made by Israelis and Israelis only. The nature of Zionism would have to be altered so radically as to be almost unrecognizable for that to change. It is not going to happen any time soon.
I also have a big, big problem with this little nugget:
Typical lazy leftist equivalence-mongering. Suspicion, even paranoia, I'll grant you. But name me an Israeli whose words are an example of genocidal hatred. Even the worst kind of antediluvian rightwingers in Israel don't come anywhere near advocating genocide. When was the last time you heard a crowd of Jews marching in the street screaming "Death to the Arabs!" Such marches are, of course, so routine in the Arab world that no one notices them anymore. Furthermore, Muslim clerics routinely preach hatred from the pulput, as a visit to the memri.org site any day of the week will tell you.
January 12, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're in cloud-cuckoo land if you think such a cockamamie idea would work. Israel is a sovreign state. It would never allow the "international community" to decide where its borders should be. You know nothing about Jewish history if you think an Israeli government would ever countenance such a thing.
What should we care what Israelis will "countenance"? Israel is a small and limited state, and its about time the rest of the world started treating them like one.
I didn't see Jews complaining when the international community laid out a very precise map of the scope of Jewish territory in Palestine in the 1947 partition plan, only a small fraction of which the Jewish settlers in Palestine actually possessed at that time. They were thrilled to have foreigners intervene at that time in their precious bubble of presumed self-reliance and disdain for others.
Because Israel is a sovereign state, you think they have a right to unilaterally determine where their borders will be? Since when do sovereign states possess that degree of omnipotence? Nobody has that power. If their so powerful, why don't they just declare where their eastern border is right now?
Israelis have become a bunch of overindulged whiny bitches with a flair for narcissistic melodrama. Listen to that buffoon Olmert go on with his presumptuous bragging about how he forced Bush to interrupt a speech and taker his call. One of these days some American president with a stronger sense of dignity that Bush is going to say he's had it with such effrontery.
I know very well the mythologies and fantasies that are baked into the DNA of Israelis. People in many nations have had all sorts of beliefs about their unconquerable mystical powers, and about being descended from gods and whatnot. But if the international community acted with unity and determination, the Israelis and Palestinians could both be brought to their knees.
Talk about cloud-cuckooland! Israelis seem suffer under the profound illusion that they are in independent island that has achieved a superhuman degree of self-determination. The characteristic Israeli attitude is arrogant self-pity: "Nobody needs Israel, and Israel needs nobody." But that's a fantasy, and Israelis will be forced one day to recognize that fact.
Here is a small sample">http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/926/re71.htm> of documented Israeli hate speech from an Al-Ahram article, including genocidal statements. But I will find more. It's quite easy. How about Rabbi Yousef Falay, who advocated the killing of all Plaestinian males over the age of 13? I don't think I even need to alert you to the very prominent strain among right-wing religious in Israel that refers to others as "unclean", and describes Israeli conquest of the land as "cleansing", "purifying" or "redeeming" it.
January 12, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
And sorry for the typos everyone. I have a cold, and my vision isn't so good right now. And Olmert has me a bit apoplectic.
January 12, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I don't think I even need to alert you to the very prominent strain among right-wing religious in Israel that refers to others as "unclean"....
The IDF has suffered more than it's fair share of deaths from "friendly fire" during the Chanukah War. One bereaved family reached out to the members of the tank crew responsible for their son's death:
"On Friday, Rabbi Amos Netanael and his wife Malki phoned two of the tank crew members who fired on a building in which the soldiers were taking refuge. In addition, they wrote them a letter full of love and encouragement:
“Dear tank crew #... of Company …. of Regiment …, who are fighting night and day with valor and self-sacrifice on behalf of our nation and land.
"We know that our son Yoni fell as part of the great military campaign at the hands of our own forces. We feel a deep inner need to tell you, with all of our life-strengths, that we love you and embrace you tightly.
“Fatal friendly fire incidents are an unavoidable part of every war and of our ability to defeat the enemy on the battlefield. Yoni went out to war knowing this, and we, his parents, sent him off to war knowing this as well.
“It was not you who hit Yoni!
“Yoni died for the Sanctification of G-d’s Name at the time that G-d decided his time on earth had reached its end. You were the pure angels who had to carry this out.
“We find comfort in the fact that your pure hands struck at him, and not the defiled hands of our wicked enemy – for Yoni could not have been felled by any impure hand."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129352
January 13, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
"When was the last time you heard a crowd of Jews marching in the street screaming "Death to the Arabs!"
Brad - That was EXACTLY what I heard in November when I visited my niece in Kiryat Arba.
January 12, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to the Bible, the Israelites under Joshua were supposed to commit "harem" on the occupants of Caanan. Harem meant that all men, women, and children were to be slaughtered - genocide ordered by the God of the Israelites.
The Israelites failed to do this and, as a result, there are living decendents of those Caananites who have a legitimate claim to that land since the Bible also states that the Israelites of Joseph's time abandoned that land to migrate to Egypt.
In the USA, this process of genocide was more thoroughly carried out by the settlers from the "old world" with the almost total annhiliation of the native 'indian' population. In South Africa, this policy was not carried out and there has been trouble between the original inhabitants and the English and Dutch settlers ever since.
Of course, at an estimated 8000 years ago the yellow aboriginies of Africa were almost totally exterminated by the invading blacks.
Determining who has the right to live in any place depende a lot on when a person or people think history began.
If it began in 1947, the Jews have the sole right to Israel. If it began any other time, there is a legitimate dispute over ownership.
January 14, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another member of the peanut gallery has pointed out that militant extremist Zionists will die rather than submit to any such impertinent imposition. The same is to be expected from adherents of the Hamás who thoroughly understand and agree with their Party ideology.
So it will none of it be happening, de facto, in any case.
Nevertheless, this peanut wonders on the de jure side where the authorization for Operation Impose Moderation was supposed to come from. Would this wild and crazy coup d’état on behalf of Turtle Bay be legal simply because the Security Council voted for it?
I presume that the unanimity of such a vote would be nothing to the point -- is that right?
Happy days.
January 12, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
What problem about authorization do you see. If the Security Council votes it in, what else is needed to make it binding as international law?
January 12, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
To illustrate how crazy Israel can be at times, just today the electoral committee of the Knesset decided by an overwhelming margin to prohibit the two arab parties from running in next month's elections. While I am sure the High Court will overule that decision, it sends a terrible message to their arab citizens as well as the rest of the World about the nature of Israel's democracy.
January 12, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . start dismantling West Bank settlements . . . . Todd Gitlin
At least Todd's politically practical enough not to demand the removal of the settlements. Can't you just see the headline in the New York Post?
Obama Demands West Bank be Judenfrei!
January 12, 2009 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or --
Judenrein!
January 12, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Might something like the "Taiwan solution" work? Could a defacto peace deal between Israel and Palestine be reached while deferring settlement of issues about the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinians' claim to a "right to return" be deferred indefinitely for resolution in (say) a 100 years? China has never renounced using force to "reunite" Taiwan and both sides disagree on the status of Taiwan, but this has not prevented Taiwan and China from getting on with building economic, social and even political relationships that are defacto peaceful. Perhaps all that a Middle East peace deal needs to achieve is agreement on a more limited set of issues such as an indefinite cessation of violence, and Palestinians gaining freedom to trade with other countries and organise their own affairs within Gaza and the West Bank. If Israeli settlements remain in the West Bank, Israel should at least pay an annual lease to Palestine in acknowledgment of Palestinian sovereignty over the lands occupied by Israeli settlers.
A lot of Western commentators continue to fret over the "Taiwan problem". It's admittedly less than ideal. However, there seems every reason to be optimistic that the peoples of China and Taiwan will one day reach a permanent settlement on the "Taiwan problem".
Perhaps the (understandable) desire to reach a settlement upfront on intractable issues (re the status of Jerusalem and right of return to Israel) is itself an obstacle to defacto peace.
Just a suggestion from an East Asian observer who wonders why the Arab-Israeli conflict should bring misery to the rest of the world (e.g., the Bali bombing).
January 13, 2009 6:26 AM | Reply | Permalink