What's Love Got To Do With It (pt. 2)
(Part one of this post may be found here.)
Palestine is not Hamas and Israel is not its settlers, though the trends are not encouraging. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Palestinians still want a two-state solution with Israel, while surrendering to the logic of violent struggle. Palestinian elites still look forward to cooperation with Israelis on advanced businesses, higher education, construction, and tourism; they may even have some affection for Israelis; they know that their economic dignity and secular life depend on staving off Hamas. And a majority of Israelis still want peace with Palestine, skeptical as they may be of Palestinian political institutions. Israeli elites are raging against Hamas, but are still stirred by globalization and know that West Bank business infrastructure cannot development with 500 checkpoints. They know their own economic growth and cultural vitality depend on peace; their children, many of whom are leaving the country, hate guarding and paying for settlements.
Yet both sides' leaders, no matter who they are, cannot break out of a now impossible bind. They cannot imagine prompting a near-term fight with their own rejectionists, which means wide-scale civil disobedience, even civil war, for a long-term negotiation that would be hostage to the first atrocity. Peace advocates are exhausted, increasingly cynical, overwhelmed by military professionals and insurgent militias depicting their own actions as preempting the other side in a fight-to-the-finish. Hamas and Israeli rightists do not oppose a peace deal the way Republicans oppose Keynes. They have killed their own leaders to get their way. And this--not just a stalled "peacemaking process"--is where America comes in.
THERE IS ONLY way out of this trap: the Obama administration must make it clear--crystal--that the deal embodied in the Clinton parameters is American policy and a vital American national interest. To oppose it is to oppose America. Negotiation is over the details of implementing it, like the Geneva Initiative group, but not over its main principles. For the record, the Israeli government under Ehud Barak accepted these principles in December 2000, while Yasir Arafat dragged his feet, accepted them with reservations, but then authorized the PA negotiating team to follow up at Taba (out of which the Geneva negotiations sprouted). Later in 2002, as the violence spread, Arafat accepted the Taba plan.
So in adopting the Clinton parameters, the Obama administration would not exactly be pushing on an open door, but it would be embracing the deal that any Israeli and Palestinian leader sincere about peace has already embraced. Adoption would certainly expose leaders who are not sincere about peace--people who use the other side's threat as a cover for ultra-nationalist ends. One such leader may soon be the Israeli prime minister.
The PA's current leaders, many of whom have participated in creating the deal, are not likely to act in ways that will undermine it. They are its most obvious beneficiaries, and will no doubt use it to gain international legitimacy for a stronger security force, and new infrastructural investment, leading to a Palestinian state. And adoption would reinvigorate the Israeli peace camp; it would immediately reimpose an invisible border. In any case, Israeli leaders must see that resisting this deal means foiling American interests, those of the European Union, and moderate Arab regimes, too; that this is the world's deal, based on conventional notions of civil rights and utilitarian principles; that Israel risks growing isolation, political and economic, if it fails to adapt to it. New settlements beyond this border, in the West Bank or Jerusalem, will be met with sanctions.
Israel's leaders, in other words, must start their planning for a permanent border, and new administrative arrangements for Jerusalem. As CBS's Bob Simon put it, they must be put into a "panic" that American support is now conditional on specific behavior. The Road Map, which was Senator Mitchell's brainchild, speaks of building confidence--Israel by stopping settlements, Palestinians by containing terror--before moving to a deal. If this sequence ever made sense, it now gets things exactly backwards. Both sides need the deal to be etched in their imaginations and reinforced by all manner of international actions. Only then does it make sense to speak of building confidence.
THERE IS A serious change in approach here, as there has been with the economy, but it is not hard to imagine how to proceed. Senator Mitchell is coming here next week, according to reliable reports. Secretary Clinton might come immediately after his initial meetings to address both the Israeli Knesset and what's left of the Palestinian parliament to announce that the Clinton parameters are American policy; that she challenges all sides to embrace them. Obama, for his part, should then stress how failure to accept the parameters will be viewed as inimical to American plans for the region.
In parallel, Clinton and the new National Security Advisor, General James Jones, should line-up support from the EU and the UN Security Council, which will almost certainly rally to them. But their vision should not end there. They should speak positively about President Sarkozy's idea of a Mediterranean Union, with Israel and Turkey acting as anchors. Clinton should offer to help organize a start to a regional water carrier to bring Turkish water to Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel. There should be talk of an common market between Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Jones should speak about a bilateral defense pact with Israel and an American naval base in Haifa. The U.S. must get away from the idea that peace means "We give them land, and then maybe they'll leave us alone."
Rather, the deal should appear a part of an emerging global consensus--like cooperation on emergency financial reform, or police action against terror. The talk should be of new federal relations and new economic unions: a patently Jewish state that is also a state of global citizens; a Palestinian state linked to Jordan and Israel that is patently a state of laws and civil rights. People who oppose the consensus must be made to feel like international pariahs, not just opponents of some (spineless) domestic "peace camp."
YET--AND THIS is crucial--President Obama should stress that implementation need not be rushed. As long as all know where we are going, we can get there with deliberate caution, in a gradual but time-certain way that permits affected parties--Israeli settlers, returning Palestinian refugees, Israeli defense specialists nervous about letting go of the tiger's tail--to take steps toward a new reality in ways that minimize the furies of disappointment and grief. A little compassion, and a lot of hopeful oratory, can go along way here. The deal will overturn many lives; it will take some time for people to see its virtues. Obama's ability to speak about generational transformation is a unique asset here.
Israeli settlers must be given time, perhaps five years, to find new homes within the Israeli state. The Israeli state apparatus should have time to repatriate and compensate Israelis who return; to plan, with the help of international forces, to cut settlements off according to a time-table from the Israeli power grid and water network.
The PA, for its part, should be given time to develop an effective domestic security force, like the one in Ramallah and Jenin, to establish its authority throughout the West Bank. Before refugees begin returning, the PA must be given time to engender the businesses and construction projects that will employ them. The state must develop an "absorptive capacity," as the British once said about the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine. Only then will the PA be able to restart dialogue with Hamas from a position of strength. Meantime, the border between Gaza and Egypt should be opened.
Most important--and even before Israel terminates its occupation--the U.S. should lead the creation of a 10,000-person NATO force in and around Gaza and the West Bank, to monitor events and buttress anticipated areas of demilitarization. The force should give greater confidence to foreign investors, working alongside--not in place of--the emerging PA police. All members of the Arab league should make clear that recognition of Israel and full peace goes along with the deal; they should offer as down payment open academic and business exchanges with Israel. In this context, a peace with Syria should be concluded, with the demilitarized Golan turned into a demilitarized nature preserve.
The point is, if we have learned anything from this past year it is that things that "cannot go on" eventually can't. The current carnage in Gaza is nothing if not a wake-up call: peace is not impossible, but Jerusalem could become a kind of Sarajevo in a matter of weeks, with Israeli Arabs joining in the fray. President Obama has the privilege of coming into power during a Middle Eastern crisis, which like all the other crises create opportunity. He can bring a new era to this region, but as with his plans for economic recovery, climate change, and the rest, the greatest danger is in thinking small.
Long story short,
(1) Define an end-stage of affairs that reflects moderate and progressive principles
(2) Expect carnage but contain it as best as we can along the way
(3) Until the end-stage stakeholders' self-interest reaches critical mass and extremists on all sides are marginalized
Sounds a little tiny bit like how Anbar Province was quieted, though far more complex. It's just crazy enough to work, and President Obama might just be the guy who can do it. The man has the makings of a next-level leader, already unlike any previous president. If he steps up to something like this he's not just thinking "outside the box" he's adding dimensions.
January 25, 2009 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I always propose two additional steps
1.Offer every Palestinian refugee family $10,000 to resettle anywhere from Albania to Zanzibar-including of course the West Bank- plus $5000 to the country that accepts them . Plus Transportation. To scope it,if a million families accepted it would cost less than $20 billion. If more than a million families accepted it , that would be a high class problem.
2.Sign a 40 year treaty with Israel to garrison a US brigade there as in post war West Germany with the sole role of being available to assist in defending Israel against cross border agression. not for "anti terrorism".
The reason for the first is self evident. For the second it is to soften Israel's objection to
the "Avishai" plan by addressing its legitimate existential fear. I harbor no illusion it would be popular. Least of all here.
January 25, 2009 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought you were snarking
The Palestinian reply: Sounds like Hitler's plan to resettle the Jews in Madagascar
January 25, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Benny Morris quoted by Henry Siegman "Israel's Lies" LRB
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html
Expel some more Palestinians because of ISRAEL's existential fears?
January 25, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for that link JohnMcCSF!
It has been a consolation to read it.
January 26, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You misread . I'm talking about refugee families living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan absolutely not about expelling any Palestinians.
I'm aware Albania to Zamzibar sounds like Hitler's plan. So maybe no one would choose to go anywhere except the West Bank. That's fine.
January 25, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny how the status of Palestinian refugees living in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other Arab nations - the ones who would be affected by the right of return - is rarely mentioned. Most live under conditions not entirely unlike those on the West Bank - restricted movement, barred from citizenship and participation in the political and economic activity of their host nations, etc., also in violation of international law. Although inconvenient for the preferred narratives, it would seem to me that these countries would have to be part of any agreement.
January 25, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. It doesn't fit the narrative. See if Israel hadn't inserted herself into this Garden of Eden, no one would have to wear clothes. It would have been all Arabs/Muslims from sea to shining sea apart from a few opp--I mean, protected--minorities.
January 25, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to cool down, Peter, and ask why you are so upset.
This is unlike you.
January 25, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it was a little "hot" for me.
Do you disagree with my characterisation of certain views?
January 25, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's easy to characterize them, negitively, and disregard any relevent points they may make.
I think after all this time, Israel needs to assimilate Palestinians as citizens, or let them go.
I think we all agree on this, mostly, but disagree on how it should be done... What I find disturbing about these threads, (which is why I don't venture in too often), is that everyone seems to have stopped listening. That said, I understand I know nothing about these matters. What may be pertinent, is that I am likely in the majority.
The New Years Gaza incident has provoked a shift in attitudes. I am not entirely sure if that is good or not, but I will say that with all the problems facing THIS country, I fear that many will lose patience with both sides, and just want to drop it.
It seems tome that with your listening skills, you could be a voice to help sort it all out.
January 25, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see your point, Bwakfat, and I appreciate your kind words. I'll try to keep what you say in mind.
My view is that almost everything that can be said about this conflict has been said...over and over.
It's only the will to do something about it...consistent good will ...that is missing.
Bernard, mostly through his eloquence, SEEMS to be saying new things. But really, when you get down to it, he's telling us that we have to take seriously what we've all said before.
Anyway, thanks for your "intervention" on my behalf.
January 25, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
flavius,
But you misunderstand. Remember the rules: Jews, Israelis, Zionists and their sympathizers are racist until proven innocent; anti-Zionists are innocent while any discussion of antisemitism and its implications is strictly prohibited lest it stifle our free and open debate.
January 27, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
My rule is that that rule is wrong.
Prick a Jew/Palestinian doth he not bleed?
January 28, 2009 5:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why should the historic ethnic population resettle. When not offer your pittance to the Israelis to resettle in Europe, Russia or America?
January 25, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you know many tried to return to their homes and were met with pogroms. Too bad you weren't around then: Maybe you could have talked some sense into the Poles, Russians, Hungarians--not to mention the Germans--and convinced them that equality for all is the way to go.
Heck, maybe you could talk to the Arab regimes that kicked out 700K or so Jews and convince them their Jews were indigenous to Iraq, Egypt, Libya, etc., etc., and convince them one man, one vote is the way to go. Maybe we should cut off all relations with them, not to mention any aid we may be giving them, until they come to their senses.
January 25, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
It appears to me that your comment reflects precisely the root of this problem. Because Jews were persecuted in other places, they seem to believe they are entitled to persecute others in the land that they took. They read "never again" in an entirely ethnic manner, not as an argument that the world as a whole needs to work towards ending ethnic hatred. This result is too bad. The times of tolerating ethnic cleansing are over. Israelis have no more right to maintain an apartheid state than does anyone else.
January 25, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me clarify that it is hardly all Jews who do this, but far too many of their opinion leaders and (with respect to Israel) their decision makers do so.
January 25, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Because Jews were persecuted in other places, they seem to believe they are entitled to persecute others in the land that they took."
Tintin: I would say they feel the right to protect themselves. That is the root motivation behind Zionism. In Israel's case, this did involve injustice to the Palestinians. That said, the early Israelis did agree to share the land, however unfairly.
"They read "never again" in an entirely ethnic manner, not as an argument that the world as a whole needs to work towards ending ethnic hatred."
Tintin: That's because "the world" never came to their aid and they fear it won't. Take the Palestinian 70-year plight and multiply it by a century or two. Then, next time you "understand" why the Palestinians don't trust the Israelis, you'll get some insight into why many Jews--not all but some--don't trust "the world."
Nevertheless, of all the ethnic groups in the world, the Jews are probably the most universalist of all. That's why, despite their few numbers, they are well-numbered amongst communists, socialists, and all-manner of folk dedicated to doing good for the world. In fact, I'm willing to bet there are more world do-gooders in teeny tiny Israel than in most Arab/Muslim countries.
January 25, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for acknowledging two things: (1) that the Israelis have acted unjustly in Palestine and (2) that they get "never again" in the wrong way.
As to the "'the world' never came to their aid," that is incorrect. Someone did. and it was us as in U.S. So their abusive relationship with U.S. is truly a problem.
U.S. should be thinking about U.S. right now. And continuing to support Israel in this ethnic war is not good for U.S. That is why I advocate that U.S. disengage by withdrawing all support. The Israelis behave badly and it taints U.S.
After 70 years of coming to aid, U.S. has done its share. If Israel wants to continue to behave the way it does, it needs to go it alone. I think that would force Israel to change. Others do not. I do not care. The U.S. needs no longer to be part of it.
January 25, 2009 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is what I'd say...
"Thank you for acknowledging two things: (1) that the Israelis have acted unjustly in Palestine and (2) that they get "never again" in the wrong way."
T: I do acknowledge that some injustice was done. Yes. I also acknowledge that sometimes "never again" is interpreted the wrong way. That said, there is nothing wrong in the Jewish perspective for standing up for oneself, particularly when no one else is. And THAT in essence is what Zionism has been about.
As to the "'the world' never came to their aid," that is incorrect. Someone did. and it was us as in U.S. So their abusive relationship with U.S. is truly a problem.
T: Not sure what you're talking about. The U.S. liberated the camps after the damage was done. Maybe that's all they could have done, but it can be argued. The U.S. has supported Israel, at least since the early 1970s, mostly because of her cold war role. But when Jews really could have used the help, the world wasn't there.
U.S. should be thinking about U.S. right now. And continuing to support Israel in this ethnic war is not good for U.S. That is why I advocate that U.S. disengage by withdrawing all support. The Israelis behave badly and it taints U.S.
After 70 years of coming to aid, U.S. has done its share. If Israel wants to continue to behave the way it does, it needs to go it alone. I think that would force Israel to change. Others do not. I do not care. The U.S. needs no longer to be part of it.
T: Seems to me that if the U.S. has caused or contributed to the Palestinian plight, we have a responsibility to try, truly try, to make things right. This seems commonsensical to me. Hence I believe in maintaining the leverage our aid and relationship afford us.
January 26, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right.
January 26, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
My suggestion doesn't reflect what I think is equitable.I don't do equities. I am interested in what might make a terrible situation a little less bad.
The Israelis aren't going to leave Israel irrespective of the historic or current rights and wrongs of the situation. The Palestinians or at least their children should have normal lives where they cobble shoes or study physics, play football and make their gardens grow. Either living wth other Palestinians or with Kosovars or Hoosiers.
January 25, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marquis de SeaToShiningSea,
Jews are a historic ethnic population of the Middle East. Meanwhile, Muslims and Arab peoples have also been expelled from Europe and are as historic to the continent as the Jews. Are you really new to this information, or is there further you would like to go with this little geopolitical history lesson of yours?
January 27, 2009 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr Avishai's two columns are so full of distortions and half-truths I don't know where to begin to correct them. Here's an attempt
(1) His assertion that "everyone knows the terms of the settlement". This simply is not true. Yossi Alpher , a veteran of the Oslo Agrements, wrote in November that the two sides are not close to any agreement on any of the major issues.
The big one is the so-called Palestinian "Right of Return". Dr Avishai and the rest of the "progressives" always assume that the Palestinans will give it up in the end, but there is no indication of this. It is an existential demand for them, not a bargaining chip.
(2) Dividing Jerusalem politically while keeping it united physically is a fantasy. This was tried with post-War Berlin and Nicosia, Cyprus. In the end, both cities were divided physically. If Palestinian forces are let into Jerusalem it will become a shooting gallery, just like the Gaza border zone. Dr Avishai and the Israeli gov't know this, but they hide it from the population, because they know the population will never accept it, INCLUDING THE ARABS of Jerusalem.
(3) Dr Avishai's division of Israeli society into primitive, barbaric, nationalist-religious "Judeans" and progressive, materialist, anti-nationalist "Israelis" is grossly oversimplistic. His assertion that "Judeans" live off the state is UNTRUE. The people who vote for the "Judean" political parties , i.e. the Right--Likud, Israel Beitenu, the religious parties, etc, make up the working class. Some, like the Haredi-Ultra-Orthodox parties have a low percentage of people in the work force, but the large majority do work and are the backbone of society, the majority of tax-payers, those who serve in combat units in the army, etc. There are plenty of "Israelis" (as Avishai calls them) who live off the taxpayer including the Leftist professors, writers, filmmakers, which are the main supporters of the MERETZ party. Also the Arabs receive a much higher proportion of state handouts than is their percentage of the population.
(3) Avishai seems to feel the solution to the Arab-Israeli is for the American to threaten punitive sanctions on Israel in order to get the "Israelis" to declare civil war on "the Judeans" because they will be hit in the pocket otherwise. Perhaps Dr Avishai is not aware of this but not all Jews are "materialist, globalist, secular, consumerists" who will sell out their identity and homeland for money. Not every man has "his price".
(4) Dr Avishai claims that there is a large "liberal, secular" Arab middle class waiting for peace with Israel. Where is this? Wherever genuinely free elections are held, Islamic parties win, including the Palestinians but also prosperous countries like Turkey and Kuwait. There are no large secular liberal parties in Arab countries trying to reach power democratically. It is the Islamic movements that are trying to come to power because they have the public support.
(5) The US and EU have no effective way of pressuring the Palestinians to make the concessions that Dr Avishai wants. If the American threaten to cut aid, Abbas - FATAH will say "this will bring HAMAS to power" so the Americans will back down. Same with the Americans in Egypt, when the US tries to get the Egyptians to cut down the genocideal antisemitic propaganda in their state media or to get them to stop arms smuggling to Gaza by threatening to cut aid, Mubarak says that this will bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. End of threat.
(6) Dr Avishai says a Palestinian state will be "demilitarized". This is another deception by the Israeli "peace camp" like the "undivided Jerusalem" which will have divided sovereignity. No Palestinian state can be demilitarized against their will. It failed with Gaza. If they want to make a treaty with Syria or Iran and have troops or weapons there, what right does Dr Avishai have to tell a sovereign state what to do?
This is just a sampling of the errors in these two columns.
January 25, 2009 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I assume that by errors you mean that his solution does not conform with your often demonstrated genocidal brand of ultra-Zionism. His proposal has the benefit of being fair, moderate, and just. It would also find substantial support (based on the available polling and other empirical data) on both sides. This, or something very like it, is Israel's only hope for peace. If it continues on its present course, Israel faces becoming a pariah state as well as further antagonizing its Arab neighbors.
It is also in the US interest to pursue this course. We can no longer afford to blindly support Israel, even when they commit war crimes. The US must pursue its own interests and those do not include supporting the current actions and policies of the Israeli government.
January 25, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I assume you would like to convince people. Probably you're also just expressing an emotion-fine, lot's do, but surely you'd also like to change some minds. So on that assumption some things that would help would be
o no matter what you may actually think, write as if you assume your opponent means well.
o respond to what he actually says
Dr. A said everyone knows. Repeat knowswhat the final settlement will have to look like. You replied that's untrue because no one is close to agreeing. Dr. A didn't say
they were. He said they knew what, some day, the final settlement will look like.
o don't misquote.
His actual words were less educated. If he had used primitive, barbaric I'd have stopped reading.
o don't needlessly antagonize possible supporters by indulging in your own pet peeves.
If there happened to be any of those various categories who might actually agree with you, you've lost them.
January 25, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
We'll always drivel from the rejectionists. This two-part piece is brilliant and penetrating.
Only problem I have, is the idea of a five-year implementation plan.
Five years unless some hater throws his first bomb, then it becomes 7 or 9 years? Till the second bomb is thrown, then it's "suspended" overall for a while? And prey to possible election of some rejectionist PM?
Plus, in less than three years, Republican candidates will be howling to the party's imbecilic rural/Talibangelical base that Obama (1) betrayed Israel (2) achieved no results, such that (3) this horrible process must be stopped.
Like anyone I can be wrong, but I don't see how you have a five-year period to implement -- sounds to me like recipe for near-certain failure. (Word "near" included mainly as politeness. :)) I say this in seriousness and with the greatest respect. Oh, and whether it's five-years or one year, all of this they-threw-a-bomb-so-we-halted-the-process jazz has to be excised from the start. Tough to do, but implementation has to be made into an automatic process in some fashion. Very tough to condition U.S. aid on this, the last person to confront Israel was Senator Charles Percy, driven out by the lobby in mid-80's for not dancing to its tune.
Suppose arbitrators were given authority to release U.S. aid or not based on whether Israel was meeting its obligations. If they ever tried not to release it, in the most routine of operations they'd be libeled (with the strong support of many on this site) as anti-Semites, and Obama would be pressured to overrule them, in the widely-advertised and heavily-funded "hope" that he was not also an anti-Semite. (Groan)
The more I think of it, five years is an eternity and it couldn't work that way. Move faster.
January 25, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
The five year horizon also struck me as too long.
But maybe not IF people could see definite and substantive progress along the way.
The UN force along the border could help temper the problem of the bomber disruptor.
January 25, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I respect what you're saying and your logic, but I'm sticking to my story that it won't work. A year to 18 months, if anyone's serious about this.
5 years is a way to kill the plan with unachievable promises (that morph along the way into mere "aspirations" and then "earler thinking"). Never work. MHO.
January 25, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also agree that five years is way too long. The delays and slow-motion "confidence-building" measures of the Oslo process and its postscripts have served only the agendas of the rejectionists, buying them all the time they need to throw a spanner into the works -- a settlement outpost here, a suicide bomber there, and voila! More rationales to keep up with the killing.
January 27, 2009 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Although in our "rational," Western-based, United Statesy kind of "can do" optimistic way, we'd like to think the antagonists will see the light if shown the way, five years is in fact a blink of an eye in this conflict. Given the deeply rooted mistrust, indeed, hatred on both sides, much of what Prof. Avishai hopes for could take a generation to accomplish. Considering that it's nearly impossible to sustain a reasoned conversation on the topic even among those who don't have a dog in the fight, I'd say 5 years is optimistic.
January 25, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd say 5 years is optimistic
George Mitchell
with Pres. Obama and Sec. Clinton at the State Department,
Jan. 22, 2009:
January 25, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also was struck that the idea of a 5-year implementation would be unworkable, for the reasons you outlined. We've seen for years how difficult any move toward peace has been and how easily undermined. Why give the naysayers all that time to work to undermine the process? No matter how the settlers are removed, it's going to be painful and difficult. Like removing an adhesive bandage, it will be far better to get it over quickly, lest resolve weaken along the way. Make it ironclad now.
Even at Taba, the Palestinians rejected the 3-year period for withdrawal (6 years for the Jordan Valley) as being too long. I also think an interim international force as opposed to a continuing Israeli military presence in the OTs may be the only answer, as it would provide Israeli security but at the same time allow for an immediate withdrawal. The Clinton Parameters and Taba didn't really resolve all of the issues. So Professor Avashai's proposal to draw out the process even longer is problematical.
But Professor Avashai is right on the money regarding the need to establish the permanent borders now. In fact, it seems to me that Israel could avoid the feared clashes between the IDF and the settlers by simply stating that after X-date (and again, this should be set at a nearer rather than farther time), those settlers remaining in the OTs would become citizens of Palestine, relinquishing their Israeli citizenship. Perhaps this sounds extreme, but I think it could work.
It's also seemed to me that the Clinton Parameters and Taba were potentially too generous to the Israelis. Although the starting place for negotiations was the Green Line, I don't think the settlement blocs should be viewed as a done deal - Israeli territory - but instead some consideration should be given to their illegal underpinnings. Because all those Palestinian refugees returning to Palestine from the camps in other countries are going to need someplace to live, perhaps an exchange of the apartments and other buildings that Israel constructed in even the larger blocs on the Palestinian side of the line could help to ease their eventual relinquishment of the Right of Return (although a recent article in the NYT suggested that such material issues aren't the right approach anyway, and instead it's attention to "sacred values" that will make the difference: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25atran.html ) It's always seemed to me that Israel shouldn't be rewarded for engaging in it's cynical and illegal building project on Palestinian land. But then, if the Palestinians are willing to accept the Clinton Parameters/Taba, who am I to complain?
January 26, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Professor Avashai is right on the money regarding the need to establish the permanent borders now. In fact, it seems to me that Israel could avoid the feared clashes between the IDF and the settlers by simply stating that after X-date (and again, this should be set at a nearer rather than farther time), those settlers remaining in the OTs would become citizens of Palestine, relinquishing their Israeli citizenship. Perhaps this sounds extreme, but I think it could work.
Seems like good ideas to me.
January 26, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree with you and Professor.
January 27, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I also was struck that the idea of a 5-year implementation would be unworkable, for the reasons you outlined. We've seen for years how difficult any move toward peace has been and how easily undermined. **Why give the naysayers all that time to work to undermine the process?** No matter how the settlers are removed, it's going to be painful and difficult. Like removing an adhesive bandage, it will be far better to get it over quickly, lest resolve weaken along the way. Make it ironclad now."
Very well put indeed. The naysayers are determined and they stay up at nights scheming on how to undermine peace. There is no way that the international community (with its election cycles and changing personnel) sustains a five-year campaign against their relentless mischief and accusations and remains united througout; it's impossible. And if the parties have five, they won't do anything for the first four in any event (after which they'll say they are too many problems), so even in the best case, it amounts to the same thing, painful and difficult and not worth dragging out like you say. Obama says that America is no longer dragging its feet. Here's to that!
January 27, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that US support should be conditional (watch out or you will be accused of antisemitism by Josh Marshall). But conditional, should be truly conditional. The US should be genuinely committed to withdrawing support in the short term is Israel fails to treat Palestinians as human beings.
And were is the recommendation that the peace keeping force monitor all military planning in ISRAEL? Why must only the victims submit to constant snooping?
January 25, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Israel Lies
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html
The Holocaust is over
January 25, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been reading Marquis and Josh did NOT call you, or anyone else, an anti-Semite. This is quickly becoming the anti-anti-Semite gambit. Instead Jews calling other folks anti-Semites, other folks, yes you, are inoculating yourself with the patently false claim that someone has called you an anti-Semite.
January 25, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose that his accusation that I would prefer genocide against Israelis might have some other interpretation?
January 25, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
He was saying that the consequences of what you proposed would lead to genocide. That's a point that could be argued. If you are arguing for actions that would lead to that result, those are your "implicit" aspirations. He was asserting they would (without proof). You were asserting they wouldn't (without proof).
However, if you're asserting that U.S. aid props up Israel and that she would be "forced" to change direction without that aid, what is the force of "forced," unless it means leave Israel vulnerable to the depredations of others? Especially as we know that "talking" to Israel, per say Avishai's plan, won't work, yes?
I happen to think it wouldn't force Israel to do anything, but that's another matter.
January 25, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
tintin said:
I hesitated to weigh in on this yesterday, but I have to say that if the premise - withdrawal of U.S. support from Israel would lead to genocide - can be argued, then it does not follow that those who advocate a withdrawal of U.S. support have ' 'implicit' aspirations" in that direction. They may believe that withdrawal of U.S. support would not lead to genocide.
This is just one example of how well-meaning people can come to loggerheads over the I-P conflict, miscommunication arising out of a misunderstanding of the other's basic assumptions. It's possible to read the Marquis' comment as not at all an expression of a desire for genocide, but to also understand why Josh did read it that way.
I can't speak for the Marquis, but I happen to think a certain amount of pressure on the U.S. government to withdraw support for Israel if it fails to honor previous committments and work seriously toward peace would not be at all a bad thing. I don't actually wish for that to happen, but it's time that Israel be called to task for it's actions that impede peace as well as the Palestinians; that's the only way we'll ever get to the desired endpoint of two states living side-by-side in peace. The Bob Simon 60 Minutes piece that Professor Avashai linked should be a wake-up call for all of those who think that the unquestioning support we've given Israel has lead - or could possibly lead in the future - to positive results.
I don't think that Josh has ever advocated that sort of unquestioning support, btw, but maybe we need a counterbalance to the many "pro"-Israel people who do advocate just that, and the Marquis has provided it here. You think it would make no difference, but I think any nudge in the right direction that can be given is a good thing. Israel has to give up it's settler project and that's going to cause a lot of internal strife. If Israel can say, "our survival in the region depends on the U.S., and the U.S. has said that unless we make these changes the support will be withdrawn," that ought to give the government some political cover for the changes that need to be made. (This of course assumes it won't be Netanyahu, although maybe he should be threatened with a "Clean Break" too.)
January 26, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your points, Wordie. And Avishai said the same: There has to be consequences for non-compliance. What those consequences are, e.g., what kind and how much aid, would have to be calibrated. It's the old conundrum: For the threat of consequences to be effective, it has to be possible to bring them to bear. However, if you shoot your wad and nothing much happens, well then, you've shot your wad.
Marquis, however, is pretty clear in wanting all aid to be stopped, period. He's a wad shooter. Just pull out, so the U.S. is no longer tarnished by Israel's misadventures. He also seems to think that that would "force" Israel to stop. I've asked for the mechanism of action in the word "force," but no answer. One is left to assume that Israel would feel sufficiently vulnerable that she would make nice with the Palestinians and the Arab world. (But what if, in fact, the Palestinians and the Arab world don't want to make nice with Israel and were just waiting and hoping for the U.S. to pull its support?)
What else can the word "force" mean? And that brings up the spectre of genocide or, if you like, a wholesale A-I war, or the threat of a large scale war because, hey, Israel would no longer have her "big brother" around. Of course, the Marquis doesn't WANT that to happen, but his position requires that he be willing to let it happen, just as long as, ah, Israel no longer stains the U.S. reputation and it's no longer our problem.
But just to be clear: OBL's principal beef was with U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia.
January 26, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin,
Obviously, Marquis de Sea to Shining Sea doesn't want an argument, but rather prefers the usual inane adversarial exchange of insults. Or perhaps the appeal is in the drama of passive-aggressively defending his/her own antisemitism. (Aside: I often wonder what is so awful about accusations of "antisemitism" -- real or presumed -- to those who are predisposed to casually toss out accusations of "racism" anyway.)
January 27, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually what Josh did was accuse any progressive who has doubts about US involvement in Israeli affairs as advocates of genocide. Don't believe me? Read it from his own hand here in part 1 of this post.
Totally uncalled for since Marquis said nothing about "letting them be wiped out". Josh was clearing jumping to conclusions and stifling a difference of opinion.
January 25, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read it very differently, Mage. Seriously.
Read that response-quote you link to within the context of what Marquis said.
The underside of Maraqui's comment, as it reads, is that Israel would fall without foreign aid, namely American aid -- albeit unstated but a very present subtext.
Josh was pointing that out and saying, also, that it would not happen, that is, Israel would not fall. Furthermore, Josh was pointing out how that answer is a short sighted answer to the larger problem in the region between two peoples and neighbors. Also, if America pulls out of the region as an ally of Israel, where is the leverage point for us with our old ally as the region devolves and its politics is likely hijacked by the fight-to-the-end people on both sides and then there may be genocide.
So "genocide" has a double layer here in it's position in Josh's response.
Seriously, folks. Stop with this shock and awe regarding Josh's very simple statement. Please read it in context -- of not only what was said, but what it was a response to, and what is going on in Mr. Avishai's text, and what is going on in the region.
January 25, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even opposing the existence of Israel is not equivalent to genocide, since Jews live everywhere and no one is talking about hunting them down and killing them or even advocating slaughtering the ones who live in Israel.
January 26, 2009 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, he said he had "genocidal aspirations."
January 26, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh stop hiding behind that "he called me an anti-semite because I was critical of Israel" pettycoat. Josh never called you or anyone else an anti-semite. The plain implications of your comment was that you were prepared for the destruction of Israel if the United States withdrew support. Josh, like most of us who actually know something about the Middle East beyond cookie-cutter diatribes against the uniquely evil Jewish state, disagreed with your premise that Israel would be destroyed, but did suggest that it was kind of odd for progressives to look the other way in connection with the possibility you yourself speculated about, to wit, the destruction of the Jewish State sans U.S. support.
Josh's mistake is that he probably doesn't delve into the Israel threads too often so he wasn't aware that the kind of stuff you wrote is standard fare. Some of us know better and tend to keep our mouths shut lest we be accused of stifling debate.
Don't worry, lots of posters rallied behind you and some might even think that you're a big hero now at the Cafe for being slighted by Josh. Unfortunately for you perhaps, you don't get to wear the actual badge of courage of actually being called an anti-semite. But, for heaven's sakes, stand behind what you wrote and take it like a man. For gosh sakes, you're an anonymous poster like most of us.
It's almost pathetic.
Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York
January 26, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
It appears to me that you and some other posters are feeling stifled from calling others posting on these I/P threads anti-semites. In order to relieve some of that self-imposed stress, I hereby give blanket permission for anyone who wishes to call me an anti-semite to do so and promise not to whine about feeling stifled as a result. Nor will I complain to The Management or activate the "report abuse" option.
The downside is, of course, that I won't give a damn and THAT is the real problem with some of us who have spent years discussing these issues.
Bring it on
January 26, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lally:
Why would anyone want to call you an anti-semite? Moreover, who cares if you give someone permission to do so? I mean really, who cares? And, respectfully, you are hardly the only person on this website who has discussed these issues for years. Stick to content, and maybe you will be heard. I've read your stuff in the past.
January 26, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since evidence of anti-semiticism varies widely in the eyes of the beholder (tentacles) I'm just doing my part in an attempt to relieve the self-stifling stress of the part of members of the TPM community who are biting bloody virtual lips. A form of public service on my part.
I could tell you, Bruce, to stick to content as well but I'm afraid that would entail a drastic change in your MO when it comes to the bulk of your input on I/P issues which consists of comments about haters, cookie cutters, parlor games, etc; often on unrelated threads.
We could have a content contest if you like.
Game on.
January 26, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
lally,
Perhaps you could. But don't you think that somebody ought to call out that shit? In the interest of free and open debate, of course.
January 27, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shouldn't Josh (being a supposed "journalist") know better as well?
It is one thing being slammed as advocating genocide by another poster, but the criticism is magnified 10 fold when it comes from the creator and supposed rational journalist of this site.
January 26, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I don't think that Josh is acting as anything other than commenting host when he ventures down here. He's certainly not coming in the capacity as journalist. Seems like he struck quite a nerve on this one. Maybe that's why he stays away from the third-real that is the I-P conflict.
January 26, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard,
I also agree with the strategy of establishing an internationally prescribed end state at the beginning of the process, in a more forceful and much more definitive way than previous "peace processes", and with the need to de-emphasize the role of "negotiations".
The plan has to be quite clear about the border that will result. It must be obvious at the outset that the pre-1967 border is the baseline, and territorial exchanges are likely to be quite minimal, so that most of the West Bank Israeli colonies will have to be dismantled, and its people re-settled elsewhere in Israel.
And as you suggest, this plan needs to be an expression of a firm international consensus that the United States strongly backs, not an expression of imperial American will, or another exercise in American liberal exceptionalism with its endemic hero complex. The plan must derive its legitimacy from international law, and both the letter and spirit of existing international resolutions and legal decisions. But, of course, committed US buy-in will be critical.
Now here is my chief concern:
As CBS's Bob Simon put it, they must be put into a "panic" that American support is now conditional on specific behavior.
How do we actually get that to happen? What kinds of conditions on US support will be specified? This plan will not be achievable unless there there are firm timetables and benchmarks, and specific and credible threats of sanctions that will kick in on either side, if that side fails to fulfill its obligations under the plan. So how does the Obama administration prepare the US public and the US Congress for such a possibility? How does he take on the Great Wall of Israel that runs through Israel, Washington and New York, and that will firm itself up immediately as a bulwark against any such plan?
The opposition in the US will be fierce and angry. It will exploit all of its assets in Congress, the corporate world, the religious world and the US media - and also in the US government. It might even resort to economic blackmail. Obama will have to rely on all his vaunted powers of communication and public organization and mobilization to defeat it. In other words, there will have to be a program of education and (truth-based) counter-propaganda in this country to counter the bi-partisan, opposition noise machine, and to firm up public support in favor of the rightness, practicality and necessity of this plan.
There is some hope here, since as far as public information goes there is nowhere to go but up. The level of education in this country about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is woeful. That is because there has been for years a virtual media blackout on discussion of this history. I have talked to numerous people over the years who believed, for example, that the current State of Israel has stood since Biblical times on the spot where it currently stands, until it was rudely attacked by bands of angry and fanatical Arabs.
January 25, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
AMEN!
Gaza just the latest chapter
It is unbelievable. Washington-and-the-cherry-tree quality historical knowledge and sadly much of it appears even here where you generally expect a higher information crowd
January 25, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tougher than the wall of segregation supported by every Southern state for over a century that we eventually blew down?
Despite all the Lobby and Israeli hoopla over the threat from Iran and the need to prevent its acquisition of the bomb, the U.S. rebuffed Israel's request that we engage in, or at least sanction, an attack.
We've turned the Lobby into a boogie man. The man behind the curtain. Yes, it has power. Yes, it's very well organized. But it is not unstoppable.
So far, Obama has been very astute at foiling expectations and breaking up old battle lines. The way forward is seldom a full frontal attack from the direction the "enemy" is expecting you.
January 25, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K: I find it odd, though telling, that you see the major impediment to Prof. Avishai's sensible proposals to be the mythic right-wing, Israel-right- or-wrong crew that you seem to think dominates the corporate, religious and media world through propaganda and misinformation. While I agree that any effort by the US to "crack down" on Israel will be met with fierce opposition from some quarters, I am not so certain that the thinking on this is as monolithic as you describe. Obviously, such an approach would be a tremendous political risk, but if made prudently, with enough backing of Israel in other ways to earn support from pro-Israel progressives, it could be done. And as for the dreaded neo-cons, to paraphrase James Baker: "Fuck em. They didn't vote for us anyway."
Of far more concern to me is the inconvenient fact that Gaza is controlled by a movement, Hamas, that shows no interest whatsoever in sharing the land, and indeed, was created in opposition to such an idea, and insists on re-arming to continue its armed struggle. Along these lines, I read yesterday that Hamas will only agree to a unity government if Fatah renounces peace talks. I'd say that's a pretty formidable obstacle.
And not to be outdone, it looks like the Israeli electorate is poised to resurrect its own intransigent leader, Bibi Netyanahu. Oy vey.
January 25, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well...
I think you need to apply your point about the "monolithic" right-wing Jewish groups to the "monolithic" Hamas you describe in your second paragraph.
George Mitchell made a very good point when he accepted the post. One key to success is including the most extreme groups on both sides. Hence Ian Paisley's participation. They are the potential spoilers to any agreement and represent the outer edge of what can be achieved.
If the door to the negotiating room is held open to Hamas and not closed even when bad things happen or they reject the initial offer, how can they not EVENTUALLY walk through it? Doing so would eventually mean loss of credibility with their own suffering people and the world.
(The same thing goes for the Israeli hardliners.)
And once the two sides are at the table, and the big powers say that THEY are going to stay at the table until a just deal is worked out, and THEY are going to ensure its terms are enforced, how can Hamas (or Israel) refuse to move forward and not lose credibility with their suffering people and the world?
Put more succinctly, the peace makers need to call the bluff of the extremists. Once they do that convincingly, progress can be made. But part of calling their bluff means NOT being side-tracked or closed down by extremist bomb throwers and the like.
January 25, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair point, Tintin. Of course, I've never spoken to anyone from Hamas, so I really can't say. I'm sure that not every Hamas supporter shares the extreme views of the movement's leaders. I have no problem negotiating with Hamas. My point, though, is that the entire point of Hamas is opposed to negotiations so I'm not sure what there is to discuss. The idea of a temporary lull is not comforting when they insist that it is only to give them time to become stronger until they can succeed in their ultimate goal. As long as the goal remains the same, it seems a state of war is inevitable. Finally, Hamas does not seem overly concerned with losing credibility with their own suffering people and the world. In a perverse logic, their support seems to grow in tandem with the suffering they are at least indirectly responsible for.
January 25, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but there are things you can read about Hamas, even if you're only reading these threads. It's pretty clear, I think, that there are different strains within Hamas, at least from what I've read. It's also reasonably clear--at least from reports--that Hamas's popularity amongst Gazans was waning before the invasion.
A smart pursuer of peace would try to tease these out and "exploit" these currents to bring about a peaceful resolution. Israel should try using smart power.
January 27, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Juan Cole puts it better than I could
http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/gaza-war-hunh-what-was-it-good-for.html
January 25, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless we put America first and stop funding Israel's wars, nothing will change
Nothing
January 25, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's amazing how not funding the Iranian regime has changed them. Then there was the Iraqi regime. Once we cut off aid to them, they changed too. Let's move on to Rwanda, the Congo, and Zimbabwe. Once we stopped funding them, they all changed. Then we have North Korea. Good thing we stopped funding them.
January 25, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, this was disappointing. In a general sense I agree with Bernard's goal--secular people on both sides living happily ever after. But I don't see how the US can function as an honest broker (this is probably a pipe dream anyway) if we continue to tell convenient lies about how the current situation arose.
For instance, it's easy enough to bash Hamas and praise the Palestinian secularists and talk as though the US and Israeli and the "good" Palestinians are all trying to make them see reason, but it really complicates this little morality play once you find out that the US helped destroy the Palestinian attempt at having a unity government after the 2006 elections--
April 2008 Vanity fair article
It's part of the bad faith that plagues so many American and Israeli discussions of the I/P conflict that we have to pretend that there are easily identifiable good guys and that our government always has good intentions, but in real life we sided with a corrupt Fatah warlord to overturn the results of a democratic election and destroyed the unity government Thomas Friedman (in today's NYT) says we should be trying to form.
January 25, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
One charge that is frequently made against Hamas is that the weapons it now uses - rockets - are indiscriminate. I have some sympathy with that charge. But in the recent war the ratio of civilians killed to combatants killed by Hamas rockets was evidently much lower than the same ratio resulting from Israeli military actions in Gaza. So whose weapons are more indiscriminate here?
The Palestinians are entitled under international law to armed resistance to the theft of their land in the West Bank, and to the blockade of Gaza. If we say that their meager rockets are unacceptable because they are too indiscriminate, doesn't that mean we are penalizing the poorer side just because it cannot afford high-tech precision munitions?
January 25, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
DanK: It is not just that the weapons used by Hamas are indiscriminate, it is that the movement's explicitly stated goal, one that it has been fairly successful at through the years, is the death of Israeli civilians. Consistent with that aim, the rockets fired at Israeli cities have no other useful purpose. (Although I'm no expert on the subject, I suppose Hamas could have aimed those rockets at the troops massed on the border; they did not.)
The ratio of civilian casualties on one side or the other is a meaningless statistic. The cold, unfortunate reality of war is that civilian deaths, tragic though they are, are unavoidable. The issue is proportionality in achieving a military objective and is not so easily categorized. As Steven Erlanger put it in a commendably balanced article in the NYT recently (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/world/middleeast/17israel.html)
"Under international law, proportionality is defined as a question of judgment, not of numbers: Is the potential risk to civilians excessive in relationship to the anticipated military advantage? That puts the weight on military advantage, since civilian risk is a given and must only not be “excessive.” Even if the target is legitimate, was the right weapon used to try to minimize civilian damage? The key is the expected damage the commander anticipated from the use of a certain weapon, and not what actually happened when it was fired."
In other words, commanders must assess whether, in attacking a military target, the risk of civilian casualties is unacceptably high. Not having been in a war zone, I can't say, but I can only imagine that these are horrifying choices to have to make with the lives of your fellow soldiers on the line. The situation in Gaza is complicated by the fact that it is a densely populated area and that Hamas openly fights from within population centers, stores its munitions in apartment buildings, mosques, schools and even hospitals and openly uses civilians as human shields, daring the IDF to fire and exploiting the deaths in order to win international support for their cause. Furthermore, just because the Hamas rockets did not have their intended effect (i.e., more deaths of Israeli civilians, making the carnage more "proportionate"), does not negate their threat. Indeed, Hamas was in the process of acquiring more deadly weaponry, capable of inflicting far more death and destruction than its relatively primitive arsenal permitted. Should Israel have allowed them to do so? This is not to say that the IDF is blameless and has not used excessive force and even violated international law (if there is any objective standard that applies in such a conflict). Just that such charges at this time and on the evidence we've seen thus far, are facile.
You write that the the Palestinians "are entitled under international law to armed resistance to the theft of their land in the West Bank, and to the blockade of Gaza." Hard to know where to begin with that one. Do you mean to suggest that Hamas is justified in lobbing rockets into Israel to "resist" Israeli settlement in the West Bank and to open the Gaza border? I'm sure you're aware that Hamas claims it is resisting the illegal occupation by Israeli jews of all of "Palestine." I'm sure you are also aware that Hamas rejects all agreements, indeed even the possibility of agreement, with the "Zionist entity" and insists on nothing less than an Islamic state under their own barbaric interpretation of Sharia law. Under these circumstances, must Israel open its border to a group that openly seeks its destruction and is stockpiling deadly weapons to achieve its aim? And if armed resistance is indeed justified, should it be met with acquiescence?
January 25, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
You write that the the Palestinians "are entitled under international law to armed resistance to the theft of their land in the West Bank, and to the blockade of Gaza." Hard to know where to begin with that one. Do you mean to suggest that Hamas is justified in lobbing rockets into Israel to "resist" Israeli settlement in the West Bank and to open the Gaza border?
I mean that Palestinians are entitled to lob rockets into Israel to the extent that they are aiming at combatants: military or security forces and establishments, including government offices. They are not entitled to lob rockets at non-combatant civilians. Hence the high combatant-to-civilian casualty rate is significant for me. You seem to think that Hamas was aiming at civilians, and only killed combatants by accident. Since it would have been very easy for Hamas to fire its rockets only at civilian areas and inflict exclusively civilian casualties, I would conclude that they were in fact aiming at combatants.
It appears you and I have very different interpretations of the fundamental aims and tactics of the Israeli assault, Armchair Guerrilla. You appear to believe the purpose of the assault was to hit Hamas targets, and that the civilian casualties and damage are the unavoidable and regrettable by-product of a war in which legitimate military targets are located in civilian areas. It is my view that part of the very purpose of the assault was to inflict pain on the Palestinian community in Gaza. Israel wishes to isolate Hamas, and defeat it politically by separating it from the broader populace. The chosen means of doing that was to send the message to ordinary Palestinians that if they are connected to Hamas in any way - if family members are in Hamas, if they live near a Hamas office, if they work in a Hamas-run school or hospital, if Hamas members are their neighbors - then they are targets. The civilian deaths were not a regrettable collateral by-product of the war; they were part of the plan.
I also believe Israel intended to inflict shock and awe on the populace by the use of fearsome and indiscriminate high-tech weapons like phosphorous weapons and Dime bombs, so as to send the message to Palestinians that resistance is futile, and that there is no safe place in Gaza. The despair felt by a Palestinian father holding his dead children is what Israel sought.
We also probably have a different interpretation of the war of which this recent assault was just one battle. I believe this is a 100 year war for the conquest of Palestine to make Palestinian presence in Palestine untenable. For most of that war, the Israelis have been the aggressor, using force to invade, ethnically cleanse and annex territory that does not belong to them. Hence, I do not see moral equivalence between the two sides. Since the Israelis are the aggressors, fewer of their military actions can be classified as defensive.
January 25, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They are not entitled to lob rockets at non-combatant civilians. Hence the high combatant-to-civilian casualty rate is significant for me. You seem to think that Hamas was aiming at civilians, and only killed combatants by accident. Since it would have been very easy for Hamas to fire its rockets only at civilian areas and inflict exclusively civilian casualties, I would conclude that they were in fact aiming at combatants."
That's silly, Dan. The Palestinian rockets can't be aimed. So the goal is to hit whatever they hit--civilian or not. Hitting anything is a hit and fine by them.
"We also probably have a different interpretation of the war of which this recent assault was just one battle. I believe this is a 100 year war for the conquest of Palestine to make Palestinian presence in Palestine untenable."
Or the Jewish presence untenable, at least insofar as they are anything but a powerless minority, if that. But if you regard this as a 100-year war, then you are justifying its pursuit to the end--until one side is victorious--which could mean another 100 years. Thus...
"For most of that war, the Israelis have been the aggressor, using force to invade, ethnically cleanse and annex territory that does not belong to them. Hence, I do not see moral equivalence between the two sides. Since the Israelis are the aggressors, fewer of their military actions can be classified as defensive."
So, at what point would you draw the line, if anywhere? Does the Jewish state have ANY moral right in this fight? After all, they came in and stole all the land; threw out the original inhabitants; what right, if any, do they have to protect any of it? If you look at it as a 100-year war, then it seems to me you have to support the Palestinians' right to fight to the bitter end, whenever that might arrive.
Did the Jews have the right to fight in 1948...or should they have just packed up and "gone home" morally speaking? Did they have the right to fight in 1967, when armies were massing on the border? What are Israel's rights in this--or is it only the Palestinians who have rights here?
January 25, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I regard Israel's right to exist as grounded in international legal rights, Tintin, not moral rights. I am a strong proponent of international law, and I do recognize Israel's international legal right to exist, since the State of Israel was granted legitimacy by the partition resolution of 1947, and by the subsequent recognition of Israel by most of the international community following the war for independence in 1948. I believe many of the decisions the emerging international community made regarding Palestine over several decades, from the fall of the Ottoman empire to the 1948 war, were very bad ones. Nut made them it did, and what's done is done.
The problem has been that Israel has no well defined eastern border, so recognizing its right to exist does not decide the question of where it has the right to exist. For the sake of peace, and recognizing political reality on the ground, I have long supported the broadly endorsed two-state solution, based on UN 242 and stressing the importance of pre-1967 border. I believe that approach best reflects the evolving international understanding at the time of UN 242 that Israel was the state established by the 1948 war of independence within the borders resulting from that war; that the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war are "Arab territories"; and that by the spirit of the UN 242 insistence on the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory was to express a conviction that those Arab territories are indeed "occupied", and must be returned to their imhabitants.
One effect of the recent hostilities has been to change my perception of the Israeli public. I used to see Israel as divided roughly into thirds, with a radical, expansionist and fanatical right wing, a peace-seeking left wing, and a conflicted, fearful but impressionable center that could go either way. But given a number of the things I have read and seen during this Gaza assault I now see the vast majority of Israelis as part of "Olmert's willing executioners", many harboring barely submerged exterminationist impulses and most holding ambitions for the total destruction of a viable Palestinian Arab entity. Since I am convinced the Israeli public has shifted in a more rightist, inflexible, chauvinistic, hate-filled and violent direction, I believe the world's governments must now adopt a much harder line toward both Israelis and Palestinians, and in effect impose on them a solution that will never get done via negotiations between the two parties.
January 25, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K. I appreciate your civil tone and, yes, we have diametrically opposing views of the history and of the present conflict. We could go back and forth about the meaning of this declaration, that partition plan, this battle, that attack, and probably not get anywhere. The best one can hope for is some effort to understand the narrative on the other side. I think I try to do that. I am not indifferent to Palestinian suffering or the injustices that have been perpetrated on them - by Israelis, Arab nations and their own leaders.
To give you another perspective, I'd like to bring it to a personal level. My in-laws live in Haifa. My father-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, emigrated to Israel in the early 1960s from Morocco. Moving to Israel allowed him to pursue his profession and raise a family free from the discrimination his family suffered for many centuries as second class citizens. My mother-in-law's family came from Russia after surviving the holocaust. Like most Israelis, they would gladly give up the West Bank settlements for a secure peace. I don't believe any of them have ever even been to the territories except perhaps once or twice when things improved for a brief period under Oslo. They have no interest in ethnically cleansing anyone or acquiring any territory. They see themselves as having been engaged in a 60-year struggle for survival in a region that does not recognize their right to self-determination. Hamas, to them, is merely a more extreme version of the same enemy they have been fighting since Israel's inception. Yes, they indulge in the idea that if only this time they hit them hard enough, perhaps then they will understand - a mindset that accounts for what some see as the excessive ferocity of the latest fighting, and that undoubtedly fuels the cycle of retribution that has come to characterize the conflict. But with one or two exceptions, they saw the Gaza war in the context of their survival as a nation. It bears noting that Shimon Peres, who has done more than most anyone to reverse the settlement enterprise and promote the two-state solution, supported the Gaza war as well.
January 25, 2009 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
AG.
Just a primer for you and others who complain about rockets being fired at civilian areas. During the war of '06 and even more so during the recent attack on Gaza, Israel's military censorship clamped down hard and the IDF SPOX was the sole source of information about where and what was hit by rockets from Gaza. This included foriegn press operating within Israel.
This time, the civilian areas hit were actively used in a coordinated effort as journalists were afforded trips to the affected areas by Israeli spokespeople assigned to the task of presenting that part of the picture. This effort to show only that side of Operation Cast Lead Draydel was boasted about openly as a successful effort to shape perceptions.
During the war of '06, control of information about the landings of Hezbollah's rockets was less succesful and considered one of the problem areas to be addressed next time. One of the lessons learned resulted in cell phones of IDF combatants were confiscated and no one other than appointed spokesmen from the IDF were allowed to speak to reporters.
Part of the Israeli reasoning for tightly controlling information about the results of rocket fire in addition to shaping the PR was purely military in nature. The logical reasoning is that if the rocketeers were able to learn that their aim at military installations and weapons caches were true, they would be able to repeat and refine their capabilities in order to cause more damage.
Israel, like any other country involved in war, takes heightened precautions in guarding their military assets. It doesn't take much imagination to understand that the crowded assemblage of human and operational assets such as Meravas and volatile artillery are considered a higher priority in terms of vulnerability than are civilian locations. The potential for damage to warfighting capabilities is deemed so critical that releasing information on a successful hit is absolutely verboten.
Therefore, if Hamas targeted and/or hit Israel's any of Israel's military assets during a conflict, the information would be considered top secret and those revealing it subject to prosecution.
In other words, drawing conclusions that Hamas and/or any other group firing rockets were soley focused on civilians is an assumption based on Israeli PR and an incomplete, for valid operational reasons, picture.
I assume that there will be those who prefer to believe that Hamas, Hezbollah, etc have no interest in damaging the sources of the enemies' military strengths in favor of killing civilians because they want to. However, the bits of information that leaked out during the war of '06 about hits on military targets clearly demonstrate the utter illogic of such assumptions.
PS. So what if Peres was rahrah war? The pattern of nearly all Israelis, including the peaceniks, is to roundly support Israel's military agressions in the early stages of the operations. The lefties are the first to peel off and to imagine that President Shimon Peres would go rogue while Israel is desperately defending the Gaza operations around the world is a stretch.
PPS. AG, your relatives in Haifa were lucky that one of Hezbollah's rockets missed a chemical storage tank located in the vicinity by 10 meters. The vulnerability of Israel's citizens to potential environmental disasters caused by warfare is a real concern.
January 26, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can get with a lot of what you say.
But if you say that the Palestinians are engaged, rightfully, in a 100 years war, then you are saying that 1948 didn't settle ANYTHING, and the Palestinians have a right, if you will, to battle on. At that point, it seems to me, the Palestinians get what they are asking for--a war that goes on and on with a militarily superior enemy.
The question of Israel's "right to exist" isn't so much a moral question as it is a question of international law. Up until 1988, the Palestinian leadership did not consider 1948 a settled matter and held out a feckless hope that the Zionist state would be destroyed. The Arab world didn't accept 1948 until its peace plan of 2002.
I would only say that these conflicts aren't static and neither are the attitudes of the various publics. Views harden and soften based on events. So I think you're painting a dynamic situation as a static one, i.e., this is how the Israeli public REALLY is. I'd say this is how they are now and based on a few thousand rockets coming their way and the suspicion that Hamas doesn't consider 1948 a settled matter.
On the Israeli side, they have to FINALLY get that they won in 1948...that they ARE secure...and that they owe the Palestinians recompense and recognition for the injustices inflicted on them with the birth of Israel. From what I can see, Israel hasn't done this as a nation.
January 26, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rights? Did Jews have the right to blow up the King David Hotel? Did they have the right to massacre 254 Palestinian men, women and children in Deir Yassin? How about supervise the slaughter of thousands of men, women and children in Sabra and Shatila (the mastermind of that massacre even got elected prime minister ) of Israel).
And in Israel's most recent series of atrocities how about melting whole families alive with white phosphorus? Leaving children to starve for four days next to the bodies of their dead mothers? Dropping thousand-pound bombs in civilian areas, killing children in their beds? Shooting UN aid workers? Shooting in the head, from 15 meters away, mothers and schoolgirls carrying white flags? Bombing schools that were serving as shelters? Rounding up a hundred or so people and confining them to a house "for their own safety" and then shelling the house?
Israel was born out of race-based terrorism and is a leading practitioner of state terrorism today. So you can stop talking about "rights." Sorry if the facts don't coincide with your little mythology about those plucky settlers in a land without a people.
January 26, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I implied no opposition to a unity government.
January 25, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't say you were opposed to a unity government. I said you, like Thomas Friedman and many others in the US conversation, leave out a rather important factor in why the Palestinians currently don't have a unity government--the US allied itself with a corrupt Fatah warlord (Dahlan) a couple of years ago in order to break up the possible formation of a unity government back then.
The Palestinians and probably much of the rest of world knows this, but the American conversation (at least among the Serious People) occurs inside a bubble where people either don't know or pretend not to know how much we've helped create the Palestinian failed statelets in the West Bank and Gaza. And so it might be a little hard to persuade even relative pragmatists among the Hamas people to trust us. But it's convenient for most Americans not to know this, because it makes it all the easier to blame the crazy Palestinians when things go wrong.
January 25, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
One other point. I want to agree with you, Bernard, since your desired endpoint is probably the same as mine, but this "Palestinian security force" that you want trained--is it one that prevents terror attacks (a legitimate goal) or does it also crack down on Palestinian protests, as I gather the actually existing Palestinian security force does? Obama already praised Jordan for their help in training security forces--Jordan, with its wonderfully spotless domestic human rights record.
January 25, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a link to B'Tselem discussing the human rights violations of both Hamas and the PA in the 2007 Palestinian civil war.
It's not that easy to tell the two sides apart on human rights grounds--
Link
However, as the PA is the officially designated pro-Western good guy, I guess we all know how this is supposed to be discussed by Serious People.
January 25, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please all: read my post from last night on the Gaza massacre, and act on it.
January 25, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The common sense approach outlined here is as welcome as it is long overdue. America must finally take a firm stand against the fanatical and murderous Israeli settlers who have had a chokehold on Israeli politics and -much more outrageously- upon US policy towards the Mideast for eight long years under the lapdog Cheney-Bush administration. This is NOT to say that (a) rubberstamping everything any Palestinian would be any less moronic than rubberstamping anything any Israeli says, but America must face the fact that its government has been vastly closer to idiocy (b) than idiocy (a) for a long long time, and it is high time that we finally have a president AND a Congress that stand up FOR AMERICA'S INTERESTS!
Two slight dissents from this generally sober well-informed, and convincing piece:
1. I fully agree with this remark of "Overreach" above: "all of this they-threw-a-bomb-so-we-halted-the-process jazz has to be excised from the start." Otherwise violence from the lunatic fringes on both sides, often defacto working in common, will doom ANY peace process.
2. I think sending in NATO or UN troops on an open-ended basis would be a mistake. All sides will somehow have to come to accept the reality that extremist Israelis and extremist Palestinians will continue -and for many, many YEARS, to try to kill each other (and sometimes succeed) and to fight like the maniacs they are to kill any peace efforts, no matter WHAT those efforts might be. This is not first and foremost the fault of NATO or the US, and it would greatly complicate the political support for Mideast peace-making ("making" including the sense of forcing) in the US and EU, to add American and European victims to the tragic deaths of locals there. The Powell doctrine so quickly trashed by its namesake in the mad rush to smash pottery in Iraq six years ago, remains valid. There are tremendous sources of economic and political pressure which the civilized west can bring to bear in support of the civilized portion of Israelis and Palestinians without sending US and European sitting ducks into the cauldron.
January 25, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clarification:
I meant to say NATO and US troops, not NATO and UN troops, in my prior comment, but sending in UN forces -while probably not a mistake of the same order- is not going to be key to any peace process or peace enforcement either. Obama and his staff will have to find a way to face down or otherwise defuse or force reform of AIPAC and other hijackers of US Mideast policy, in addition to the other political or diplomatic necessary steps discussed here by Mr. Avishai, or the many decades long cycle of hypocritical violence in Palestine will not only continue, but probably worsen, and in any case continue to block any sensible two-state resolution, UN troops or no UN troops.
January 25, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard Avashi thinking is clear. I have forwarded part 2 to two friends. I have not been able to print these articles. Is it me?
Sam Smith
January 25, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "print" function here doesn't work for me either. But copying and pasting into a word processing document does.
January 25, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
THANK YOU John McCSF! I'm not quoting you, but thanks for your sanity none-the-less.
January 25, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I second that.
Thank you JohnMcCS!
January 26, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
A horse and a flea and three blind mice
Sat on a curbstone shooting dice
The horse he slipped and fell on the flea
"Whoops," said the flea, "There's a horse on me!"
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
--------
The horse (Israel) fell on the flea (Palestine) with the three blind mice (Obama, Clinton, Mitchell) shooting dice hoping for a double-seven while Likud-Kadima-Labor sing 'Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?'
January 25, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Prof. Avishai for a thoughtful post and a pragmatic and welcome change from the oft-repeated efforts to get both sides to realize the obvious solution obscured through decades of war, hatred and mutual mistrust. As proof of the success of your venture, please note that I am in agreement with many commenters with whom I have argued, often vehemently, these past several weeks. Nicely done.
But in the spirit of discord that necessarily permeates any discussion of the subject, allow me to point out a significant fly in your otherwise sensible ointment. Hamas. While you posit a means for the Israeli middle to confront its radicals, I don't recognize a similar means for dealing with the far more implacable and dangerous (in my view) radicals on the other side. It is unclear whether you believe Hamas can be co-opted (not likely in my opinion) or marginalized, and if so, how. As long as they remain in control of Gaza, inalterably opposed to any negotiation or compromise, and dedicated to armed "resistance," it's hard to see how any process can go forward. I am reading now that Hamas is vowing not to participate in any unity government unless Fatah agrees to halt peace talks. So, my question to you and anyone else willing to give it a go is what do you propose to do with Hamas?
January 25, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did the US "propose" to deal with Irgun in 1947? Did it bomb Jews in Palestine, killing hundreds of children, until they "learned a lesson" and repressed their terrorists?
America and most of the international community ARE dealing with Hamas, by refusing to recognize it as long as it refuses to recognize Israel. This is not a recipe for instant peace, certainly, but it is also not a reason why the US has to be a door mat for perpetual Israeli occupation of the West Bank in order that fanatical Israeli settlers can build ugly as sewage fortresses on stolen land that have been there IN ORDER to block peace, as they have been, for much longer than Hamas has been in existence. Your obsession with Hamas ignores the common sense reality that blame for the mess in the Mideast lies on BOTH sides and US government policy has been incredibly stupid and outrageously against the interests of the US in pretending that blame lies all on one side only.
January 25, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bullshit. The blame lies squarely with Israel, a state founded on Jewish terrorism that has no intention of allowing a two-state solution. Deir Yassin is Exhibit A and the currently expansion of Israel's West Bank colonies is Exhibit B.
Any discussion that assumes Israel has ever negotiated in good faith is pointless.
January 28, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Avishai in these two articles and earlier ones has given a very good analysis of internal Israeli politics and why it would be difficult if not impossible them to pursue the Clinton parameters. He then goes on to conclude that any solution will require the US to force the two sides together using the threat of our financial backing.
But that solution sets aside the problem of internal US politics. Should Obama even begin to attempt such a thing there will be one very powerful opposition coalition here that must be considered. The GOP, proIsraeli Democrats and major funding sources for the Democrats would be that opposition. Perhaps that could be overcome but the effort would likely be all consuming. Somehow I do not see Obama burning his political captial on this issue at the expense of his economic and national health care goals. Also we should accept that the American people likely have much higher priorities today than Israel's war with the Arabs.
January 25, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're right about the opposition, but don't you think that this latest incursion by Israel has weakened support for Israel in the public's mind? I think a large part of the problem through the years has been the very one-sided reporting and that seemed to change this time in Gaza. How many people saw the Bob Simon piece, for instance? The position of Congress will change when it recognize that the days of black-and-white "for us or against us" are gone in terms of Israel too, and that it's possible - make that necessary - to take a nuanced approach.
Real support for Israel doesn't mean enabling it's worst excesses. Don't you think that Congress can come to see that?
January 27, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unintended of economic collapse, the deficit spending required in response and the crowding out credit crunch sure to follow
We can't fund our own international misadventures any more much less Israel's wars
Moreover, Israel depends not only on USG aid but also private aid...B
Then there's international trade. Isael depends not only on USG and Israel Lobby aid, the garrison state depends on exports to survive
January 25, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
These discussions give me heart burn.
I will limit myself to the issue that caught my attention before I read everyone's hand wringing stuff.
5 years is way too long a time period for implementation. Secondly, and more importantly, the settlers ain't leaving the west bank. it will lead to a civil war. There is no way around that. Will the IDF soldiers rise to the occasion? While soldiers who refuse serving in the West Bank are jailed, those refusing to remove settlers from illegal settlements are given carte blanche.
I'm all for civil war. The settlers would have no problem taking me and my kind out (pro-2 state solution Jews). Fuck 'em.
January 25, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two seriously fab posts, Mr. Avishai. Bravo!
I really like the way you lay out the problem, firstly -- with the bind that Israelis are caught in with wanting peace and yet wondering how it can be and secondly, how easily the fight-to-the-finish mindset can derail the region more and mostly the way's and the why and the compelling need for a strong American presence at the peace table. As you said --
. Agree. I really liked President Sarkozy's idea of a common market in the region and specially between Israel and Palestine in the Mediterranean Union. Also, the idea of a NATO investment in security in the area which will bring foreign investors.Having said that, I'm all for a permanent border but I want the wall taken down. I hate that wall. It's massive size is replicated in my imagination as a humongous symbol of failure, of exclusivity, of fear and hate. I realize it may not come down right away. But I hope it will come down sooner, rather than later as Israelis and Palestinians begin to feel safe. Another point - something has to be done for those Palestinians who have ended up as refugees in other countries and have lived for generations as second class peoples. And mostly I really, really hope Bibi Netanyahu is not elected.
I think the key in your post is for the emphasis of the global direction of national/regional economies and participation in global markets, instead of the dead-ender ethnic/national/historical split. It is a path away from wounded identities, fractured histories and towards a regional cohesive economy of collaboration and a build up to even imagining a collective future. I hope it happens.
January 25, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard (Prof. Avishai, if you prefer): Your analysis in Part 1 was so compelling, I feel very let down by your prescriptions here.
Others point out some sources of resistance that you fail to account for: the determined violence of West Bank settlers, the paralysis of the Israeli political system, the cowardice of the U.S. Congress.
But the most glaring omission is the Palestinians. If you're going to make peace, you must make it with THEM.
Instead, you pin your hopes on "the PA's current leaders." That's a pretty weak reed, especially after the Gaza "war."
Do you really believe Mahmoud Abbas can agree to implement a West Bank-only deal, then "restart dialogue with Hamas from a position of strength?"
And that Gazans will meanwhile settle for a reopened Rafah crossing?
As I argued elsewhere, Abbas no longer speaks even for the West Bank: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/acanuck/2009/01/gaza-war-fallout-abbas-is-toas.php.
No, the starting point has to be a Palestinian unity government -- one based on free and fair (internationally monitored) elections. New ones are due in any case.
If Hamas wins, so be it. Talk to them as the representatives of the Palestinian people. Hold their feet to the fire on terrorism, bargain hard, but open a real dialogue. Pressure from ordinary Palestinians will impose a pragmatic approach.
Or not. But the chance of success exists -- which it does not if you choose only to deal with pliable puppet autocrats.
January 25, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reliance on fantasy scenarios vis a vis Abbas and the Arab League are part of the problem with prescriptives of this nature.
Changing facts on the ground have no effect on the imagined scenarios. Avishai writes as if Gaza hasn't happened.
It's analogous to a physician writing a script for antibiotics when the patient's problem is an acute viral infection.
..and Obama is playing doctor as far as I can tell.
January 25, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to be clear: I have no objection to a unity government, which is in any case is largely a way of talking about putting together a negotiating team, not really exercising the jurisdictions of a state apparatus so long as the occupation continues; besides, no PA (read, Ramallah-based) negotiating team would agree to a deal that it felt Hamas supporters would reject, anymore than Arafat could agree to a deal the refugee camps would reject.
My point is that the negotiation must start from an international plan, whose basic fairness has time to sink in; not start from "let's talk and see what happens." By the way, what talk of a unity government must not obscure is the importance of the Palestinian private sector, including the Amman diaspora, in laying the foundations of Palestinian civil society. Statehood does not mean land; both states are city-states; and Gaza, which is poor, is the size of greater Tel-Aviv, which is rich. The real hope is economic growth pulling people into hopeful building, no matter where the border is (which, in a state of peace, would be pretty much permeable anyway).
January 27, 2009 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for responding, Bernard. I'm with you that "Let's talk and see what happens" hasn't produced anything of substance. I'm sure George Mitchell knows to avoid that trap.
We really do disagree on how crucial it is to have a unified Palestinian voice. You're right that Abbas (or Arafat in his day) could never agree to a global deal Hamas would reject. But, as long as Fatah insists on being sole negotiator, that's a guarantee of deadlock.
That's the practical problem.
Even more important is credibility. Palestinians will have to buy in to any deal -- and Fatah (especially Abbas) has lost all popular trust.
Mouin Rabbani backs me on that score:
http://thenational.ae:80/article/20090123/REVIEW/759141570/1008
Palestinians have tasted democracy and (even though they got punished for exercising it) I think they want to keep it. They've certainly gained nothing from a Mubarak-style police state.
People blame George Bush for pushing Palestinian elections; I think that's the one Mideast move he got right. He just didn't have the balls or the imagination to pursue the logic and actually negotiate with Hamas.
A unity government is perhaps the only way to correct that blunder without losing too much face.
Another point you raise: "Statehood does not mean land." Hard to tell that to people who continue to lose land every day, or to the settlers they are losing it to. The "permeable" border you speak of is only permeable one way.
The last point you make is of course key: Palestinians need to have a real economic stake in peace -- and that means trade, water, reconstruction aid, industry, freedom of movement. All incompatible with the continuing Israeli siege of Gaza and (yes) the West Bank.
Obama is making all the right noises, but the problem is a majority of Israeli voters seem to have bought into the iron-fist approach over a diplomatic one. And the hard line may get even harder after Feb. 10.
The only good thing coming out of the Gaza "war" is that so many people, at least in North America, finally realize we are already in the end game.
January 27, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Avishi. Excellent post and interesting thoughts. The one intractable party in the region your proposed plan, as does all I have seen, leaves out is Iran. Given the West's reliance on Middle East oil and Iran's desire to control it, peace efforts will not succeed as they are not in Iran's interest and they will continue to destabilize those efforts. Once you figure out how to get Iran to stop being Iran, then there will be opportunities galore. At this time because of oil, the West(US) needs Israel as much, or more, than Israel needs the West(US).
January 25, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Mr. Avishai. This is the most thoughtful analysis of the Isreal/Palestine issue I think I have ever read. Comprehensive as well. It gives me hope that there is a way ahead, even as I despair in the face of intransigence and violence. I am of Jewish ethnic heritage, but the settlers really frighten me and make me doubt my Jewish and American pragmatic idealism.
I hope Obama is willing to stick his neck out a bit. Though I am a big fan of his, he seems to be trying too hard for compromise and consensus, when, as you point out, it is no time for small approaches, which is all too often the result of decisionmaking by committee. I think he would share this vision, but will he read it or see it here, and so know that there is a way forward out of this nasty morass.
January 25, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please take a look at the 60 minutes segment that was shown tonight:
60 Minutes Video
In my view, the two-state solution has been dead for a while. The corpse is just being noticed. Oh! of course, there will be lots of activity (peace process) around the dead body trying to resuscitate it. And some people are still in the denial stage of the grieving process.
The near-term result is apartheid. The long-term result will be a one-state solution.
January 25, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apartheid is a one state solution. The question is how long will it last -- Israel is betting forever or until an international crisis that will make transfer palatible to the rest of the globe.
January 25, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, an incredibly direct, honest, blunt report by Bob Simon. Next time I am tempted to throw some blanket of disdain over the "mainstream media", I will remember this report and refrain. Bravo to Mr. Simon.
January 25, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that was a good segment. The most striking part to me was the interview with the Israeli settler. The political cost of removing those people from their homes may be more than Israel can bear. I hear Livni saying it must be done, whereas Netanyahu says no such thing. Therefore, it seems the outcome of the upcoming election will be critical in whether a process is even started in the next few years.