Israel's Only Way Out
I'm less hopeful than M.J. Rosenberg, in his brave and necessary post below, about the American news media's focus on the suffering in Gaza. Such coverage delivers no more political enlightenment than it does about any other disaster. Still, Israel's long, incoherent, destructive strategy for Palestinians does come into some focus with the images of 1.5 million people in a holding pen, as I noted here on January 4. Where does Israel go from here?
Perhaps the first thing to remember is that history cuts both ways. Soon we may learn that Hamas has tortured, maimed, or killed hundreds of Palestinians since Israelis left on Jan. 20. Slowly, American bleeding hearts will stop bleeding. The tragedy is that Israel's parliamentary democracy -- in which even the briefly-banned Arab parties will participate on Feb. 10 thanks to a Supreme Court unlike any other in the Middle East -- doesn't seem able to short-circuit the country's own part in this destructive spiral.
Israeli voters seem traumatized, paranoid. They can't blame only Hamas' and Hezbollah's obvious totalitarian and nihilistic streaks, including the loathsome suicide bombings of 2002 and 2003, which some of Israel's critics oddly never mention. These nihilists have done much to push matters beyond the point of no return.
But not they alone. A lot must be blamed on Israel's excessive courting of big-power gamesmanship, against which Hannah Arendt warned so presciently; its rapacious market priorities (including arms markets); and its bone-headed citizenship, religious, and settlement policies, which have ratcheted up racism even (sometimes especially) among the 40% of Israeli Jews whose parents or grandparents grew up speaking Arabic in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
The cold bottom line is that for 40 years Israelis have tried to reduce Palestinians in the territories to the condition of American Indians, a defeated people surviving on smaller and smaller reservations or, at best, Bantustans. Where was the Marshall Plan or the confederative economic, EU-style effort backed by Israel (and the US)? I see only gestures and bromides along those lines from the three leading candidates in the Feb. 10 elections.
As the Gaza War raged this month, Michael Walzer, a political philosopher who edits a small journal called Dissent, lectured its readers on the proper use of the term "proportionality" in assessing the calculated relation of means to ends in Israel's venture. Walzer might now turn his talents to elucidate the proportionality of means to ends in Israel's policies toward Palestinians since 1967.
If Walzer would have us sideline the conflict's emotional and moral dimensions in order to think strategically, can he do it to help us see, factually and strategically, what Israel's intentions and conduct toward the Palestinians have been since 1967? Can he show us the tough choices and hopeful efforts that Israel made and that he supported, only to see them thwarted by unbending Arab rage?
Can Walzer recount how leaders of Labor, if not Likud, tried to nudge Israelis toward an understanding that Israel could survive only if Palestinians were enabled to build something better than Bantustans and Indian reservations? If he can't do that, could he please stop urging we understand proportionality as a calculated relation of means to ends?
The ineradicable difference between American Indians and Palestinians, of course, is that demographically and politically the tide is on the side of the latter. True, Hebrew was spoken in Palestine 1500 years before Arabic; and when the Romans conquered the Jews there and named it Palestine, not only wasn't there any Arabic in the area; Islam didn't exist, and wouldn't for another 800 years. But there were other native peoples; it was the Hebrews who were always on the move; and, today, their valid historical claims notwithstanding, Israel can survive as a Jewish fortress state only if it becomes like Singapore-- an increasingly authoritarian, racist society garrisoned against surrounding threats and desperation. Otherwise it will have to consider possibilities like those suggested by Seyla Benhabib in a recent essay, "What is Israel's End Game?", that is getting the attention it deserves.
Every step Israel takes in the direction of Singapore is killing off its beautiful, even unprecedented, social-democratic experiment with a rich confluence of cultures, including those of its Palestinian citizens and the Arabic strains in much of Israel's Jewish life. I have little patience with American critics of Israel who know nothing about this and want to know less -- and show it by proposing academic boycotts of a country whose universities are among its strongest centers of self-criticism and even resistance. If the would-be boycotters knew anything, their hearts would be bleeding out of both sides. And, by their logic, they'd have spent the past eight years boycotting themselves.
But I do hope that the shift in American public opinion which M.J. describes will strengthen President Obama's ability to send strong signals in the next few days that re-open Israeli political debate, and leadership, between now and the Feb. 10 elections. Otherwise, Israel will become a society that is harder to defend, and even to love.
Very thoughtful post, Jim.
The cold bottom line is that for 40 years Israelis have tried to reduce Palestinians in the territories to the condition of American Indians, a defeated people surviving on smaller and smaller reservations or, at best, Bantustans.
I believe it is Baruch Kimmerling who used the term "politicide" for this process. Many Israelis and US supporters of Israel present this as a sort of unintended process, driven forward by a fanatical and minority settler movement that they for some reason can't control. But given the unrelenting nature of the process, stretching over decades, it is very hard not to see it as the deliberate and consistent policy of the Israeli government, with broad multipartisan support.
And something seems to have changed in Israel. Old, durable perceptions about the nature of the Israeli political spectrum now seem disconcertingly obsolete. As MJ says, there is a feeling that Israel has "jumped the shark".
I have some European friends who told me the 2004 election results in the US did more to damage the US reputation than anything else. They were willing to see Bush as a mistake that the voters would correct after he had shown his true colors. But when the US public went ahead and endorsed the Bush policies, it was a severe blow to our reputation.
I wonder what the global reaction will be if Israel goes ahead and elects Likud and Netanyahu. It seems shocking to me that even killing 1500 Palestinians isn't enough for the Israelis, and that the public feels a need to move even further to the right.
January 30, 2009 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the shoutout, Jim. Great piece. Funny how many Israelis of the Bibi stripe would love to see Israel become Singapore. But what to do with the Pink City, Tel Aviv. Caning gays, lefties, hipsters, the tatted and the pierced in T-A would take all the resources of the state.
Congress would have to provide a supplemental to help Israel deal with its dissidents. And it would. The bill would be introduced by liberals from New York and LA.
About your last line -- loving Israel -- remember back when you were at Yale and I was at Brandeis? Remember the stuff we wrote then? Did we have stars in our eyes or was Israel a very different place.
The answer is yes and yes.
January 30, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Caning gays, lefties, hipsters, the tatted and the pierced in T-A would take all the resources of the state."
Huh?
January 30, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what is the United States' way out? By supporting the ever more terrorist state of Israel, we have invited the anger of the Arab population. How do we solve that?
January 30, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I presented my ideas for a pacification plan the other day at Steve Clemons' blog. The leading idea is to move away from the idea of negotiated solutions based on meetings and deal-making between the two warring communities, and move toward an imposed solution based on coercive diplomacy from a unified international community. The process that is needed here is not one that aims at getting Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, but one that aims at building clarity, consensus and firmness of purpose among the rest of the international community. Asking for everyone's indulgence, I present the ideas here again:
___________________________
If, for political reasons, Hamas can't be a participant in direct talks with the US government and its envoy, then we need to organize a process that excludes *both* Palestinian factions *and* the Israelis, and that isn't so reliant on US mediation. As I have suggested in the past, what is needed at this point in this interminable conflict is not another negotiation-based peace process, but rather a binding international resolution developed by everyone in the world *besides* the two warring parties. No bazaar; no horsetrading. Instead we rely on international law, order, and justice, and the firm determination of the community of nations. To be blunt, what we need now is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to be made to sit in the corner and wait: Likud, Hamas, Kadima, Fatah, Meretz, the Palestinian Authority - all of them must be made to sit still wait.
Here are the needed steps:
1. Organize a special commission under UN and Security Council auspices, a UN Special Commission for a Final Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
2. Conduct a series of commission meetings and hearings in the region at a permanent commission headquarters in a neutral country - most likely in Cairo or Amman.
3. Make it clear at the outset that this is not a negotiation of any kind, but a process of fact-finding, deliberation and adjudication through which the international community, guided by the Security Council, intends to develop a plan and implementation policy for the enduring pacification of the region.
4. At the outset of the process, it will be necessary to freeze the facts on the ground in place. No settlement expansion for Israel, not even for the purposes of "natural growth"; no arms smuggling for Hamas. UN troops should be brought in to police the situation in the occupied territories and Gaza, and maintain the freeze.
5. Ban Ki-Moon, or an appointed Special Commissioner, can invite statements and presentations from all interested parties, including Hamas. If the United States representative feels compelled to be absent from the sessions at which the Hamas representatives provide testimony, so be it. But since the point of the sessions is to acquire evidence, not negotiate, there should be no objection in principle to taking evidence from Hamas. The US would not be negotiating with terrorists.
6. Following the hearings, which should be public and broadcast, the special commissioners should retire along with the regular UN representatives from Security Council members into private meetings to hammer out the most workable plan. It will be understood that the implementation will eventually require the Palestinians' top Arab and Muslim allies to take tough steps toward the Palestinians, and require the US and other Israeli allies to take tough steps with the Israelis.
7. A consensus having been reached, present the plan to the world in a united front, and pass the plan through the Security Council. We should expect this plan to be highly detailed, and leave very little room for negotiated details. It should attempt to settle borders down to the neighborhood level. And what details remain to be resolved should by resolved through a quasi-judicial process established as part of the plan, not a bilateral negotiation.
8. Bring the result to the parties, now representing the unanimous and fixed determination of the international community, speaking with one voice. While I'm sure some pleasant diplomatic language can be found, the idea is to *impose* this plan on the parties. Establish benchmarks, timetables and *sanctions* to be imposed on either party, by the entire international community, for failure to comply. Recall we are talking about very small territories and populations. If the international community is truly united behind implementation, the contending parties will have little choice but to comply.
In artistic training, people learn to adjust their vision and shift attention from positive to negative space with a change of gestalt. The chief problem with this conflict for so long has not been the parties, located in a relatively small piece of positive space that is the obsessive center of everyone's attention. The problem is with *everybody else* in the vast negative international space that surrounds it. The world outside the conflict is riven by divisions, distrust and intrigues on this issue, and an absence of diplomatic consensus, clarity and precision. This despite the fact that almost all other countries have bigger fish to fry. Let us make this international arena the new positive space and reorient our attention. It is time for the international community, grounded in the UN Charter, to summon the will to do the job is was meant to do: promote global peace and security.
Barack Obama is a constitutional lawyer, and apparently an internationalist. He should break the habit of addressing this issue in the American business style, like everything is about the art of the deal. He should stop thinking like a corporate CEO or mediator, and start thinking like a judge.
January 30, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"7. A consensus having been reached ..."
OK, Dan, I think I see the flaw in your proposal.
January 30, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good Point.
January 30, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
While it's true that Dan's proposal presupposes not a consensus among the affected parties but a LACK of consensus, I think he's right to say that more outside pressure will be necessary to crafting (and in implementing) a deal than we have ever seen before now.
Yes, that means that, far from achieving a consensus, the solution will in some ways enrage the extremes on each side and alienate some people in the middle. But, as in the all-too-rare but welcome instances when the bigger boys on a playground break up a serious fight among the smaller and then try to help both sides reconcile, nothing short of such an intervention now can possibly save the conflict from passing the point of no return.
Obviously it will have to find, support, and rely on those leaders from each side who are brave enough to support a solution, as was the case in Northern Ireland, where leaders of the various factions risked their lives not by fighting violently but by stopping the violence. There are Palestinians who, like Mandela, are in jail and should be released to play a part in this process.
Of course, it all seems unrealistic at the present time. But that is always the case when these things begin.
January 31, 2009 6:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your response Jim. My feeling is that the chief reason for an outward-in process is that it is much more difficult politically for Israeli or Palestinian leaders to give up anything significant in bilateral negotiations, than it is to give those things up in response to overwhelming international pressure. In negotiations, there is always some more extreme political party, or more uncompromising national resistance group waiting in the wings to shout "betrayal!" if the negotiating partner goes to far. That ties the hands of the negotiators.
But if Israeli or Palestinian leaders are forced to give up something in response to a united international front, one threatening sanctions for non-compliance, these leaders can justifiably go to their respective publics and say, "What else could I do? Our hands were tied." They may grumble and complain publicly about the injustice of the pressure, but be secretly thankful for the political cover provided by the outside intervention.
So I believe that before we involve the Israelis and Palestinians in yet another peace process, a preliminary process needs to be in place that is aimed at building a strong international consensus and resolve on the shape of a solution, along with mutual public commitments to the use of sanctions against either of the two contending parties for failure to cooperate. Yes, that is a certainly a challenge. But it is less of a challenge for states outside the region, for whom the I/P conflict is a fundamentally a foreign policy "problem" than it is for the two combatants in the middle of the maelstrom.
A not insignificant side benefit of this approach is that success would restore and build confidence in the capacity of a UN-based international security order.
January 31, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
"There are Palestinians who, like Mandela, are in jail and should be released to play a part in this process."
Finally, something we can agree on, Jim.
I have long argued that the release of Marwan Bargouthi is in everyone's interest, and long overdue.
He's Fatah, he's a reformer, he's secular, but he's respected by Hamas for his commitment to the struggle, and untainted by the corruption and timidity of Fatah's old guard.
Abbas is stalling his release because he knows Bargouthi would easily beat him for the presidency -- but who pays attention to what Abbas thinks these days?
Freeing Bargouthi (most logically, as part of a prisoner swap for Shalit) is the easiest and most obvious next step that Obama should be urging on the Israelis.
February 1, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Airports? Airspace? Israel loses it's main airport off the top. It's within easy rocket range of the eventual (Green Linish) border. With all the good third party intentions and troops deployed, people can easily rocket the airport, pretty much at will. One loaded blown up 747 kills all tourism and all commercial air traffic. And what can be done about that or after the facts? Not much as far as I can see.
January 30, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel's main airport is Ben Gurion on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. If you are talking about Jerusalem International, I understand that's no longer in civilian use.
Are you really arguing that no peace deal should be attempted because any part of Israel can be reached by some kind of rocket from Palestinian territory?
That's a fact with or without a peace deal, so maybe it's a good idea to seek a pact that provides mutual security.
January 30, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, don't be silly. I want peace (pretty much now) and I think the Israeli's should be prepared for hard concessions on the West Bank.
Yes, I was talking about Ben Gurion. I didn't know there was or is a Jerusalem International.
I wonder what they do for security now? The West Bank Palestnians have not so far shown that they have rockets. But that could easily change or Hamas could send in a few folks. Obviously there is some security.
All I was saying that since BenGurion is what, 7-8 miles from the Green Line, issues of security need to be really carefully covered. You can't build revetments for planes. They're too big and too many, plus what do you do about the terminal.
Assuming a wonderful peace, the kind I suspect we'd both like to see, all it takes is one idiot in the Judean hills with a Grad or a Stinger and blam, airport closed, tourism cut by who knows, 2/3?
I don't know the answers here, but I do know the best anti-missile systems are not perfect. Maybe the best idea is to put a string of Phalanxes or whatever the Phalanx has morphed into, to the east of the airport. It'd be a long (10 mile?) line of expensive guns, and while real good weapons, it's not perfect or even very good against small rockets. And the targets really need to be flying more or less right at the gun, so you'd need a hell of a lot of guns. Which unfortunately fire depleted uranium projectiles. However the distance they fire them is pretty limited, so if the guns are near the airport (best position anyway) nothing with likely go over over the Green Line.
How would you protect the airport and planes landing and taking off? Goodwill on both sides is not the answer in this generation.
January 31, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's certainly no dearth of idiots in the Judean hills. But the risks you talk about apply to any airport in the world.
The ultimate answer to terrorist threats is to ratchet down the overall level of violence and conflict in the region and the world, not look for technological fixes.
And the first step is to stop demonizing and dehumanizing your enemy.
January 31, 2009 4:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I can appreciate your frustration AND the thought that went into this. But when has the international community, acting as one through the UN, ever imposed, or been able to impose, a solution on anyone? So, acanuck is right: You assume the ability to achieve what remains for you to achieve.
I agree that the end point needs to be established up front--a precise definition of the borders, for example, and terms on the refugees--as Avishai said. But still, how can you get a lasting resolution unless the parties, and the most extreme elements within each camp, agree? The world itself is too divided along many different lines to act "as one." We can barely agree on global warming and what should be done about it.
This, I think, is Mitchell's key insight coming out of the Good Friday agreement.
That's not to say that outside parties can't lean heavily on their side to make big concessions. I don't know how it worked in Ireland. Maybe they finally realized that they weren't getting anywhere as they had been going. Maybe the whole political landscape was different and eventually more conducive to sharing. I don't know.
January 30, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obviously, it would be an uphill battle to get this done, Tintin. But I don't think the plan is any less realistic than thinking a solution will be achieved through Israeli-Palestinian "negotiation", or by a United States that magically transforms itself into an "honest broker".
I'm counting on a growing sense among people all over the world that says, "Aren't we all just fed up with Israelis and Palestinians?"
January 30, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for all this distraction, but it is off the point. The US is sullied with Israel's scorched earth policy. Even brokering is not called for. The US should tell its client state to behave at once under threat of total withdrawal of support.
January 30, 2009 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sleeper tries hard to appear objective but his irrepressible tribalism always carries the day.
January 30, 2009 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
This post was mostly good. The "tribalism" comes in where he imagines he's arguing with some lefties who think Hamas is nicer than it really is, or that pretend not to know Hamas started murdering Israeli civilians back in the 90's. He condemns these unnamed people for never mentioning the suicide bombings a few years ago, without himself mentioning that even with those bombings, the Israelis were still killing three times as many civilians. It gives me the impression that he is a little resentful that Israel alone is getting so much criticism in certain circles. That's fair, so long as he's been outspoken all along about the suffering the Israelis have inflicted on the Palestinians and hasn't been one of those pseudo-liberals who said the settlements were an obstacle to peace, but would hastily add that they weren't making any moral equivalence between Israel's misdeeds and Palestinian terror.
Shorter me--If he wants to say that both sides have their nihilistic killers and he's said this all along, then I have no problem with him.
January 30, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
He also writes Hebrew was spoken in Palestine 1500 years before Arabic; and when the Romans conquered the Jews there and named it Palestine, not only wasn't there any Arabic in the area; Islam didn't exist, and wouldn't for another 800 years.
I think this historical justification for Israel is down right dangerous. It is part of the myth that is driving the settler movement. Here is what is wrong with this picture. History did not start 1500 years ago. We have a fairly good picture going back 3000 years. From 1500 BC to 1948 the Jews ruled the area for about 250 years. The Hebrew speaking people were inhabitants for much longer. Stating that Islam did not exist until 800 means exactly what? If my ancestor converted to a new religion, then he has somehow given up his property rights and therefore 1200 years of continuous settlement can be revoked by a tribe to that did not convert? Even if some of those ancestors who converted were Jews themselves. And what is the significance of this evolution of language? Languages change.
This betrays a very deep emotional attachment to certain myths that are part of the problem.
January 30, 2009 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not a question of tribalism, but to make my views clearer in light of misunderstandings like argeec's above, I have inserted this revision into the post itself:
"The ineradicable difference between American Indians and Palestinians, of course, is that demographically and politically the tide is on the side of the latter. True, Hebrew was spoken in Palestine 1500 years before Arabic; and when the Romans conquered the Jews there and named it Palestine, not only wasn’t there was any Arabic in the area; Islam didn’t exist, and wouldn’t for another 800 years. But there were other native peoples; it was the Hebrews who were always on the move; and, today, their valid historical claims notwithstanding, Israel can survive as a Jewish fortress state only if it becomes like Singapore -- an increasingly authoritarian, racist society garrisoned against surrounding threats and desperation."
January 30, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I gave you credit for trying to be objective, Jim.
I just think it's hard for you, and I think I can understand that.
For example, you could have mentioned that the Jews first acquired the area by taking it from the Canaanites, having been commanded by their G_d to "slay every man,woman, child and beast therein, keeping only the gold".
Or you could have mentioned that the zionists, while still in Europe, were well aware that Palestine was occupied by roughly 700,000 people, and that a Jewish state was possible only if those people were removed.
But those aren't easy facts to dwell on and I wish you well in your struggle for true objectivity.
January 30, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The cold bottom line is that for 40 years Israelis have tried to reduce Palestinians in the territories to the condition of American Indians..."
The cold bottom line is that you are a liar. Israel has repeatedly offered land for peace, as President Clinton has verified. Your side continues to insist that only the destruction of Israel is acceptable.
Israel completely withdrew from Gaza, making it the kind of Jew-free zone cherished by Hitler and Sleeper. Even that was insufficient for the genocidal Gazan anti-Semites, who responded not with a reciprocal peace overture but by launching rockets at Jewish children.
It is impossible to make peace with implacable foes, just as it is impossible to reason with pathologically dishonest anti- "Zionists".
January 30, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
A siege (as Israel held Gaza under for the last several years) is an ACT OF WAR. Israel never acted in good faith to end its hostility to Gaza.
January 30, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"True, Hebrew was spoken in Palestine 1500 years before Arabic; "
Gets your facts straight Jim: Hebrew was never the spoken language in Palestine. The Jews spoke Aramiac and even Greek. Hebrew was solely a liturgical and literary langauge.
January 30, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are wrong here. The people who lived in this region spoke Hebrew 2500 years ago. Aramaic was the language of the Babylonians. Babylonian Jews who returned to this land brought Aramaic with them. Hebrew became a solely liturgical and literary language after the Diapora about a millenium later.
January 31, 2009 1:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Syvanen is right, but I hope that everyone noticed what point I was making in bringing up the history, which is that the truth discredits a lot of organicist, "tied to the land" romanticism on both sides. Anti-colonialist critics from afar sometimes indulge such nonsense, and in the case of Jews vs. Arabs in Palestine the actual historical realities are so complicated that it's nonsensical, indeed.
In response to a previous post of mine that mentioned how Palestinian nationalism awakened with, and partly in response to, Zionism, one commenter asserted that the only reason Palestinian farmers hadn't revolted or demanded a nation during centuries of Ottoman rule was that they'd been reasonably content to be rooted in the land. This is the sort of romantic projectionism that discredits those who deploy it. Palestinian farmers were being ground into the dirt by feudal land-owners and their Ottoman overlords, many of whom happily sold them out to Jewish buyers, dozens of parcels of land at a time.
Many of the dispossessed farmers, rather than fleeing, gravitated initially toward the Jewish Yishuv and the early Kibbutzim, where they got at least the crumbs of social-service and employment options they'd never known before. In saying this, I am not interested in romanticizing early, pre-Hitler Zionism, which became brutal in its own ways soon enough. I am simply trying to show that it really, really doesn't help for people to project beloved anti- and post-colonialist paradigms onto this region.
January 31, 2009 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Jim:
Good piece. I remain reluctant to give up on a 2-state solution, though it seems every more difficult with the Israeli slice-and-dice of the West Bank by highways and settlements. Not to mention the pointless slaughter in Gaza, and its similarly moronic sister war in Lebanon in 2006. But maybe Israel losing the moral high ground is what the region needs; that will open the way for US pressure, which is surely needed. But then the problem may just switch: Americans have a hard time with moral complexity. Thus I still support a 2-state solution, as I did at my brief tenure at the AJC, but now have to worry (as a Jew) whether America/Obama will swing too far in the other direction. The situation is not Manichean there, even though many on both sides (there and here) perceive it thus. I believe the only way to go foward is for both sides--brought together by someone like an Obama--to jointly state, before the cameras of the world, in Hewbrew, Arabic and English (maybe Farsi too), that both sides recognize the fundamental legitimcy of the other side's claim to territory in Israel/Palestine as being equally lodged in history and morality as their own claims. This might just shift the collective consciousness in the area enough to enable serious talks on "final status" issues. Without some such symbolic reconstruction of the emotional ground over there, both sides will continue to talk with forked tongue and continue to sabatoge talks.
January 31, 2009 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi, Joel Gallob (we are old comrades in Brooklyn newspaper wars from the late 1970s -- I shudder to think how long ago that was!). I am not against a two-state solution if we could get one. I was trying, though, to stretch the parameters of our thinking, if we can't. Seyla Benhabib's piece, linked in mind, is a kind of thought experiment (she is a Sephardic Jew from Istanbul with relatives in Israel, by the way). If there can be a two-state solution that gives the Palestinians something more viable than Bantustans, I'd support it, but I think that it would be better if the parties were able to take a few pages from the EU's way of balancing sovereignty and common markets. Let's not forget that when the European Common Market began, France and Germany weren't exactly friends.
January 31, 2009 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
As an Israeli who reads many US blogs and websites, I usually avoid commenting on Middle-East related discussions, which are rarely based on knowledge and real interest in the regional mess (as, by the way, are discussions in the Middle East itself). This post, Jim, was right to the point and one could only wish there would be more like it. I think you are right to say that most Israelis are traumatized and paranoid, which explains why they refuse to confront the oppression and violence conducted in their name in the occupied territories. And as a grad student, I couldn't agree more that the idea of boycotting Israeli universities is pure folly, as it seeks to attack one of the only progressive and human-rights oriented institutions in the country. The real question, however, is what US diplomats should do. What would be your suggestions to Michell, Clinton and Obama, now that they will have to deal with an extreme right-wing government after the elections 10 days from now?
January 31, 2009 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, I hate to pile on.
But could you please resist rhetorical flourishes like: "Soon we may learn that Hamas has tortured, maimed, or killed hundreds of Palestinians since Israelis left on Jan. 20."
Or maybe we won't.
So far, we have not.
January 31, 2009 4:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
To "Acanuck," Carolin Emcke of Die Zeit, a big German daily -- she is the closest thing to George Orwell in the quality of her reporting -- finally got into Gaza last week, and her first report does two things:
She interviews and examines Gazans to try to determine whether and to what extent phosphorous bombs were used by Israel;
and she reports that so far Hamas has killed, tortured, or sounded 500 people, including destroying the knee of a young man she met whose only crime was to have criticized Hamas on the internet. Emcke also quotes Palestinians saying that the division among Palestinians is now permanent and irrevocable, just as Israal wanted -- and thanks to what Hamas is doing. You might also want to read reports that Hamas killed 500 Fatah members in the West Bank in 2007. The truth is not pretty, or, indeed, excusable, on either side. Get real.
January 31, 2009 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, Jim. The truth, in Gaza or the West Bank, is never pretty.
I can't read German, so I'll have to accept that Emcke asserts Hamas tortured, wounded or killed 500 of its own people since the Gaza "war" began. I have not seen other claims in that range, however, even from Fatah.
Hamas has indeed admitted executing "collaborators," but without saying how many. Most news reports say "dozens," and Haaretz gives the highest estimate I've seen, at 40-80.
The Guardian has this:
One respected human rights worker in Gaza said he believed between 40 and 50 people had been killed in reprisal attacks since the start of the war. But there was not yet enough evidence to suggest this was an organised campaign by Hamas, he said.
"We don't know who's doing the killing," the worker said. "Some are individuals, some might be from Hamas. It's been happening over several days, all across Gaza. It's not all necessarily Hamas actions against Fatah." Another human rights worker put the figure at between 25 and 30 documented cases of reprisal.
Whatever the number, placed against Gaza's toll of 1,400 dead and 4,000-5,000 wounded, this is not exactly a bloodbath.
The IDF has acknowledged using local informants in its targeting; it's pretty clear only a fraction of them were identified and punished.
You win this round, Jim. You maneuvered me into defending Hamas fot its leniency.
January 31, 2009 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the above response to acanuck, "sounded" should have been "wounded".
January 31, 2009 5:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Jimmy Carter talking points are now being parroted by all his fellow anti-"Zionists":
Unless Israel submits it is doomed!
Of course, the exact opposite is true, which is why Sleeper and the other bleating Orwellian sheep are so frantic for Israel to make unilateral concessions.
Here is my prediction, Sleeper: despite Obama's best efforts to the contrary, Israel will exist long after you have departed these Earthly bounds.
January 31, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is safe to say that anyone who uses the name "Anne Frank: for internet cuteness is (1) utterly insensitive to the holocaust (2) indifferent to the murder of kids.
She'd rather score a point than save a life.
February 1, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh dear, and here I had decided that Prof. Walzer and Dr. Cordesman were the two members of Team Aggression who managed to make themselves look a little better by talking about the Gaza caper!
Walzer, egregiously no historian, has not yet noticed the generality that his dearly beloved bellum justum fandango has almost always been deployed to allow the bearers of the Secular Sword to do as they please. The received impression that it is a gimmick designed to benefit pacifist spoilsports is just plain wrong.
Anyhow, Walzer did see that BJ Theory is an enablement mechanism in the immediate context of Operation Tin Soldier™:
That deliverance does not altogether make sense, perhaps, inasmuch the utility of knowing about unimportant moral limits on warfare does not instantly leap to mind, but still, that is what the man says. [*]
The only balanced and fair way to summarize Sir Oracle of New Jersey for handy conveyance to the lay sheep, it seems to me, would be something like "Forget about ‘proportionality’! If you rely on that gimmick in this instance, you will allow yourself more than you deserve."
In Dr. Sleeper's terms, "The proper use of 'proportionality' is 'Don't use it!'"
This 'lecture' seems edifying enough to me. Mais que sçay-je?
Happy days.
___
[*] Perhaps he uses the Imperial or Rovean 'we'? After his own heavy tertiary-educational investments in BJ Theory, Mr. Walzer personally may "HAVE to make" such-and-such calculations from which newcomers and passers-by may be excused. (But of course I quite see that that cannot be what he meant.)
January 31, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would Israel trust the U.N. Security Council when Israel is not eligible to serve on the Security Council. (Or did most of you not know of this discriminatory situation?) As to the "dehumanization" of one's opponents, that feat has already been accomplished vis a vis the Palestinians by the rest of the Arab world, and its illegitimate leaders who still try to ride the tiger by focusing public outrage on others. If you think the creation of a miserable and degraded Palestinian refugee population was inevitable, and the fault of Israel and the West, consider the following :
Why are there no Jews in refugee camps? (Nearly as many Jews as Arabs were coercively relocated, at the same time.)
What of the "right of return" of these 500,000 Jews who left homes and businesses all over the Arab world against their will?
January 31, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're getting to it, Jim, but there's still a big hole in your view, which is the automatic, one-dimensional conflation of Hamas and Hizballah. I understand that alliteration is hard to resist, however, they are not conjoined twins. I would suggest that a way out would involve a more nuanced understanding of each organization that goes beyond the 'evil Arab' caricature.
January 31, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was no conflation of Hamas with Hezbollah and no "evil Arab" caricature in my post. The fact that Hamas and Hezbollah appear together once in my post does not entitle Dave Bowman to sniff pedantically about a lack of "a more nuanced understanding of each organization."
There are many differences between the two organizations, as I'm sure Bowman will hasten to remind us that there are many differences between, say, the religious parties in Israel (Many members of one of these two Jewish religious parties tend not really to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel, for example). But one of the many things that Hamas and Hezbollah do have in common is a preference for theocracy and the use of terrorism at levels and in ways Bowman does not, I hope, mean to excuse.
January 31, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Preference for theocracy--yep. If I were Palestinian I wouldn't vote for Hamas.
Use of terrorism--How exactly does this distinguish Hamas from Fatah or the IDF? That's a rhetorical question and I'll answer it--there's no difference. Hamas is a brutal organization, but so is its Palestinian rival and its Israeli government enemy. Here's an article about what the PA has been up to in the West Bank--
Link
February 1, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink