Mr. President: Don't Take "No" For An Answer on Settlements
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington was pretty much a bust. That is because the definition of a successful meeting between world leaders is one where some sort of agreement is reached.
The sharpest difference between the two leaders was over the two-state solution and the methods employed to achieve it. Obama repeatedly invoked the two-state concept while Netanyahu simply refused to utter the phrase. This refusal represents a repudiation of Israel's previous policy, a significant step backwards.
Netanyahu did say that he favors the immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians. But, by refusing to endorse a Palestinian state as one of the goals of those negotiations, he removed any incentive for Palestinians to engage in the process. His idea of negotiations is Seinfeldian: they would be about nothing. Netanyahu's "peace process" would involve a little economic development here, a little institution-building there, but nothing truly significant.
Does anyone really think that the Palestinians are going to negotiate with Israel in order to achieve an amorphous form of autonomy (which is all Netanyahu is offering)? That idea was rejected by the Palestinians when Prime Minister Menachem Begin offered it thirty years ago.
Nor are Palestinians interested in Netanyahu's plans for economic growth projects while under occupation. Would the Israelis of 1947 have abandoned their dream of statehood in exchange for economic development projects? If economic development and infrastructure were such significant incentives, the Jews would happily have stayed within the British Empire. After all, the British were providing both.
Of course, the Jews would not have traded sovereignty for infrastructure. All peoples want and deserve economic improvement, but few, if any, will give up national rights to achieve it.
Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians develop the institutions of a democratic state before actually having a state is both silly and redundant. Most of those institutions have been developed since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1993. The Palestinians would, as is normal, develop the rest once they control their own territory (and lives), not while under total Israeli occupation.
In any case, Netanyahu's offer is meaningless so long as settlements, the wall, checkpoints, and Israelis-only roads make Palestinian commerce impossible. In a sense, Netanyahu is hoisted on his own petard. There can be no significant Palestinian economic development under occupation.
Economic development requires freedom of movement--and that requires moving toward the end of the occupation, which is most certainly not Netanyahu's intention. His goal seems to be to maintain the occupation for as long as possible in order to avoid conflict with the crazy right, for whom Israel's security is infinitely less important than maintaining its hold on "Judea and Samaria."
Fortunately, the Obama administration understands that and is therefore demanding that Israel "stop settlements" as a first step.
That is utterly reasonable. The settlement enterprise continually gobbles up the land upon which a Palestinian state would be built. Every settlement, legal or illegal, is an obstacle to Palestinian sovereignty. Allowing settlements to remain is to condemn Palestinians to permanent refugee status which is, to a large extent, the point. If Washington is determined to see implementation of the two-state solution, the settlements have to be stopped.
The problem is that for thirty some years successive Israeli governments have ignored the United States on this issue. On occasion, it accepts a "settlement freeze," but then creates exceptions. It maintains that the freeze does not apply to East Jerusalem, that it does not apply to "natural growth," or to the major "settlement blocs."
Today, the Israeli government simply says that stopping settlements is impossible because doing so would bring down the Netanyahu government--which is hardly America's problem. If the Obama administration believes that opposing settlements is a matter of principle, it must insist upon it without exception and without regard to Netanyahu's political situation.
This is not to say that Israelis cannot assert a right to exceptions related to East Jerusalem, "natural growth," settlement blocs, or whatever, once borders are established. Of course they can. But only in the context of final status negotiations, not in advance of negotiations or as an excuse not to engage in negotiations.
The same applies to Israel's desire for recognition as a Jewish state or its insistence that the Arab moderates offer "confidence-building" concessions in advance of negotiations. It is all well and good to request that the Arab states permit El Al planes to fly over their territory, but only after the completion of successful negotiations.
Demanding these concessions as a precondition for negotiations is a total nonstarter. By the same logic, the Palestinians should be able to demand recognition of their right to a capital in East Jerusalem as a precondition for negotiations. But they don't. They simply state that they will place that demand on the table once final status negotiations begin.
Neither side should be permitted to establish preconditions for negotiations. Stopping the settlements is not a precondition because their increase makes an agreement impossible (once the land is gone, there is nothing to negotiate about). It is comparable only to the cessation of terror. No one would ask Israel to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority while the PA was engaged in terror activity against Israel. For Palestinians, the settlement enterprise, which turns their lives into a living hell, is the same thing. The only difference is that the PA does not engage in acts of terror and, with American assistance, is successfully combating attempts at terror by others. The settlements, however, continue to grow. And grow. And grow.
The Obama administration is right to insist on a settlement freeze and the elimination of illegal outposts, without exception. Otherwise, the peace process that Obama is determined to bring to completion will be stillborn. Palestinians do not like our position on refugee return. Israelis do not like our position on getting rid of the settlements. Fine. They have the right to be heard. But in the context of final status negotiations, not as a precondition for them.
President Obama surely understands that. As Prime Minister Netanyahu must have learned during his meeting with our new president, the man was not born yesterday.
I agree on freezing settlements but am unsure you are consistent on the two-state solution. Isn't calling on Israel to accept the 2-state solution comparable to calling on the PA to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in so far as that is the basis for having two independent states? Shouldn't we either call on both sides to agree before starting negotiations that the deal will leave a Jewish state Israel and a Palestinian state Palestine or demand it of neither and just proceed to negotiations? The other question is what to do regarding Hamas's more explicit rejection of a permanent two-state solution - maxing out on a 10-year Hudna which Israel would never accept. Interestingly, though he's in the employ of the state department, George Mitchell has discussed minimizing preconditions as part of his success in mediating peace in Ireland.
May 22, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, I'm betting Cheney is whispering in Bibi's ear, telling him to ignore the White House and egging him on to attack Iran.
May 22, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a fine, clear, and outspoken bit of overdue common sense. Thank you for it.
Two further observations:
1. There are two fundamental issues here that overlap yet are distinct: (a) the denial of the fundamental right of self-determination to Palestinians and (b) the lack of a stable peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. A Palestinian state without peace is undesirable, but the world can tolerate it, as it has tolerated an Israeli state without peace for many decades. The Palestinians cannot be expected to accept peace without a state any more than Jewish terrorists in 1947 did.
2. There can be no legitimate equation between the cessation of Palestinian terrorism and of Israeli settlements as preconditions for peace negotiations until the Palestinians actually have a sovereign state with the full authority to act against terrorism (as the Israeli state has the full authority to stop -or in the case of Gaza, remove- settlements). Allowing such an equation amounts to a recipe by which terrorists can torpedo peace negotiations.
May 22, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub,
How do they get there? In other words, how would Palestine employ such authority to act against terrorism when its competing parties maintain armed wings (Hamas and Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades; Fatah and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades) very much at odds with each other? And who represents the authority to determine which security faction operates in the interest of an emergent Palestine as a whole?
May 24, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
These are good questions, and ONE (of several) reasons they even arise is that there has been a long-standing, deliberate, and very successful attempt by Israel to derail movement towards a Palestinian state, the lack of which precludes such issues from being realistically resolved (statehood being a necessary, though not sufficient condition - see my other comments below!). When the King David Hotel was bombed, it was also unclear which pre-Israeli-state Zionist sub-faction had ultimate authority.
May 24, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
And when the Altalena was sunk, it became clear.
May 25, 2009 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
It should be noted that it was the King David Hotel's bombers and their shipment of weapons that went down with the Altalena.
May 25, 2009 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Dennis Ross is Special Advisor for the Persian Gulf.
It's Morning in America!
May 22, 2009 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "His idea of negotiations is Seinfeldian: they would be about nothing."
MY COMMENT: LOL! Good one!
May 22, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
>MJR
Sound, common sense. I have a feeling that this President will be the catalyst for change. He cut his political teeth in Chicago. He knows the score. IMHO he's not subject to corruption or threat from the Israel lobby. During the first term of this presidency we will see a dramatic new political paradigm whereby Israel will cease to be on the front page every day and there will be substantive improvements in Middle East stability. He is as aware as the rest of us that the status quo is leading us into a third world war, this time with WMD that will decimate the world. He wants as we want a world where his children can grow and prosper and to achieve that aim he must alter the balance in Washington and root out those who are intent on damaging our democratic principles for personal gain. I believe Obama is the man to do just that.
May 23, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen , Colindale...Most important is that he is not obligated to the lobbyists or constrained by other than humane considerations!
He is also not afraid of the old failed hawk -BiBi....
May 25, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
All fine and well, but how on earth can Obama stop the settlements? What do you suggest he do? What makes Netanyahu (and the rest of the Israeli government) change course on settlements--something they haven't done for forty years?
MJ talks a lot about what should or shouldn't be done, but I see absolutely no plan for action. Wishful thinking and pleading won't change a thing. That's all I see from MJ.
How about lobbying for sanctions against Israel until settlements stop, MJ? Until you're ready to take some action with similar force, no one will--or should--take you or your Israel Policy Forum very seriously. There's no bite and very little bark--just a whole lot of pathetic whimpering.
(Meanwhile AIPAC--an organization that really knows how to snarl and tear flesh--will continue to rip to bits any American politician who tries to put any pressure at all on Israel to do anything to stop settlements or end occupation.)
May 23, 2009 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're not wrong, PS, but dont assume there cannot be a paradigm shift just because the status quo on settlements has lasted for 40 years. Nothing lasts for ever. Not Sharon, not Arafat and certainly not Likud.
This president is no patsy. He knows right-wing Jewish politicians intimately from his Chicago days - and is more than a match for them. Never forget he is the President and he has the ability to knock heads together and change mindsets - and he will, I have little doubt!
They may dismiss him as just another politician to be bought - but they make a grave error. This one is different. This one has balls. And this one believes in democracy for America not Zionist stratagems that enable House members to relax on the beach at Herzalia twice a year.
These are the years that the great American public from NY to LA and all states in between will finally use their voice and their voting power to elect representatives who will really look after their interests and eject those who do not. The time is past in America, as in the UK, where elected politicians are merely self-serving, puffed-up caricatures holding office merely to enrich themselves and to vote tax dollars to foreign states on the pretext of US security.
Have faith. Things DO change. Think apartheid South Africa just 20 years ago.
May 23, 2009 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Congress vote for sanctions against South Africa?
You think they'll do the same against Israel?
HaHaHa
May 23, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe things will change, Colindale. I do think Obama is more thoughtful, more original--and possibly (though not yet certainly) more effective--than recent past Presidents. But he's also proving to be a staunch pragmatist--both in policy and politics. So I suspect our policies toward Israel and Palestine will change only if there's a pragmatic reason and way to do so. This means several things, I think:
I have concerns that none of these conditions can be met.
So . . . I guess I remain skeptical, but you are right about Obama's potential and maybe he will surprise me even on this most perplexing issue.
May 23, 2009 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
All of the points you raise have a validity. But you ignore the fact that I have already made: unless there is dramatic change, there is every possibility of a nuclear war that will start in the ME and then spread to Europe.
The event that can trigger that scenario is an unprovoked attack on the sovereign state of Iran. The consequences of which are at present unknown not only to me but also to President Obama - but they would be severe and globally extensive.
We are not dealing here with a few thousand unarmed civilians in Gaza or the Lebanon. Iran has a real army with real missiles and other armaments and she will not just lay down and die for an aggressor. Her defence could endanger not only the attacker, but many other states, in reprisal.
We are living in an exceedingly fraught and dangerous time and a war with WMD that would not only be nuclear but chemical and biological, would contaminate huge areas of our planet. To ignore this threat would be foolish. And this US administration knows that very well.
May 23, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has indeed stated that he thinks a solution to the Israel-Palestinian feud will help defuse the Iranian nuclear problem, and that the "linkage" goes in that direction, not the opposite direction as asserted by Netanyahu. I am not sure, however, how greatly the already unsettling risk of nuclear war will be increased by Iran going nuclear. China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, all have nukes now. And so has Israel, for years. The key issue is not the highly desirable goal of reversing nuclear proliferation, or of Obama's intelligent commitment to addressing it. The central question, hinted at by Purple State above, is whether Obama will hedge, fudge, waffle, and ultimate back way off from this goal in response to domestic political pressure. In order for that NOT to happen, it may take something like an anti-AIPAC with the tenacity and funding of an AIPAC itself. The organizations of Rosenberg and other columnists on TPM are very worthy and welcome steps towards that, but a long way from comparable in scale, focus, and effectiveness.
May 23, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. What is required is a public enquiry into the activities of AIPAC and other lobby groups and whether these organizations work to the benefit of the US or to its detriment. There is a contention that their activities are unAmerican and undemocratic that charge needs to be investigated and resolved.
The previous House Committee on Un-American Activities was concerned, or overly concerned, with a threat to the Federation that turned out to be imaginary. Today there is a threat which is very real indeed to our democratic institutions.
Democracy is concerned with the will of the people and the welfare of the people. Unelected minority groups with enormous power in the legislature are a threat not only to America but by extension, to the world.
Let us have a strong spotlight into the workings of these groups and an investigation into whose benefit they exist.
May 23, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are suggesting that a shadowy group of conspirators is manipulating American Democracy toward its own nefarious ends, thereby bringing us all closer to ruin. That group is apparently "the Jews," or to put it more politely, the "Israel Lobby." Sounds familiar? Being of professed Jewish ancestry yourself, you should find it so.
May 23, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not impolite to equate AIPAC with "the Jews".
It is a crude falsehood. The closest affiliation of AIPAC's methods and goals is with those of a very tiny fraction of the world's Jews who inhabit and wreck havoc upon the West Bank.
May 23, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
>AG
I do not PROFESS to be of 'Jewish ancestry'. I am a practising Jew and worship at my local synagogue.
So if you are intending to make that ancient slur that I am 'a self-hating Jew' or 'an anti-Semite' because I am a harsh critic of Israel - you would obviously be climbing up the wrong tree.
May 23, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not profess to proficiency in armchair psychoanalysis. Suffice to say that you strike me as fixated on Israel as a source of the world's ills, a fixation I find to be in many instances misplaced and invariably extreme. As for myself, I have not set foot in a synagogue for a religious occasion in at least 20 years. I am married to an Israeli. As a result, I travel there regularly and while there is much to criticize, find your characterizations disturbingly facile. I have never visited the territories or any Arab country. I suspect if I had, I would be equally disturbed by the caricature of them being a squalid breeding ground for extremists and terrorists. Most people, after all, just want to live their lives and be left in peace.
May 24, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is little doubt that AIPAC acts to the detriment of the United States (there have been investigations already). At any rate, one cannot fight unAmerican deceit and character assassination with unAmerican witch-hunting.
The pressure of AIPAC is relentlessly anti-US, colossally hypocritical and highly immoral, but it is fully legal under the Bill of Rights, and must remain so. The ultimate antidote is to organize and apply comparable legal counter-pressure on the U.S. Congress, so that its weak-kneed members will be caught in the middle and forced to think about what to do, rather than simply flutter like dead leaves in the direction dictated by one consistent prevailing wind.
May 23, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Colindale says:
I wholeheartedly agree, all lobbying groups should be looked into, using public hearings by Congress, as to the benefit/detriment their cause does to the United States.
Maybe we could start with a list of the 10 largest lobbying contributors to Congressional campaigns.
We can call it "The Permanent Committee on Investigations to determine the benefits and/or negative effects on the United States by lobbying groups."
Since Paul Wellstone isn't with us anymore, I nominate Bernie Sanders for the Chair.
May 24, 2009 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
This relentless and singleminded focus on the settlements as the source of, and potential key to, resolving the Israeli/Palestinian dispute is becoming pernicious.
Yes, the settlements are a major obstacle to peace. Yes, they must be stopped and eventually rolled back. Yes, Netanyahu's refusal to even pay lip service to the idea of a Palestinian state is a disturbing step in the wrong direction.
But the incessant railing about the settlements really only tells one part of the story, and it's not the biggest part. I read the NYT editorial this morning urging Obama to drag Netanyahu and Abbas to the negotiating table. All well and good, but really, how much negotiating is left to be done? The parameters of the agreement are well known. Creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza on territory approximating the 67 borders with land swaps to compensate for retention of some settlement blocks, some arrangement for shared sovereignty in Jerusalem, and a right of return to the new Palestinian state for 48 refugees with financial compensation to others.
What this myopic concentration on the settlements obscures is the fact that before Netanyahu, the past three Prime Ministers accepted some version of this partition. None of these plans were flawless, but Israel has on more than one occasion, offered proposals that would roll back the settlements and establish a Palestinian state, most recently Olmert's offer as reported by Bernard Avishai here at TPM. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/04/olmerts_unprecedented_offer/#comment-3457441
The problem, seems to me, is that for the Palestinians, and the Arab world in general, the issue is not the establishment of a Palestinian state. That only accomplishes part of their goal. The issue is the existence of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. Witness the demurrals of the moderate Abbas, publicly and repeatedly rejecting any plan that does not fully grant a right of return for all 1948 refugees and their descendants - which, because it would overwhelm Israel, is not a peace plan at all. "Abandon your state and you will have peace," is the message. This has been the consistent position of the Palestinian leadership and accounts for Arafat allowing the process to explode - either actively or passively - following Camp David. Add to that the complete disarray on the Palestinian side (a situation for which Israel deserves some responsibility) as chronicled by Ethan Bronner in the Times the other day, control over Gaza by the irredentist Hamas, and the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran, and peace seems far far away. The sides are farther apart than MJ lets on. Although they may both talk of peace, the word has an entirely different meaning for each.
So it's not just a question of the settlers. Under these circumstances, is it even possible to imagine Israel ceding control of the territories and allowing the creation of an entity implacably hostile group bent on its destruction?
What to do? Some have suggested presenting the agreement to the parties as a fait accompli. This might work. Pressure on Israel to restrict and ultimately roll back the settlements is fine. But Obama and the world community also need to exert pressure on the Arab community as well. The Saudi peace plan was a start, and Israel lost an opportunity by failing to engage on it, but it seemed more a PR move, and in any event, also included the right of return. Geez, I don't know, I'm just an armchair guerrilla, and I have other responsibilities to attend to.
But returning to my main point, the incessant bleating over the settlements has become tiresome and IMHO masks the real root of the problem.
May 23, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
AG - According to what I learned while in Israel during the last election is that there is A LOT of fine print missing from Avishai's summary of Olmert's offer. It is the fine print that makes the "offer" not yet acceptable to the Palestinians.
First, I heard Livni specifically say that in the "offer" much of the Jordan Valley would be leased from the Palestinians for exclusive Israeli control. Because it was leased that amount of land was considered part of Palestinian percentage even though they could not use it. It still meant Israel would control all ingress and egress from Palestine.
Second, the inclusion of the expanded Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel and Kiryat Arba makes a mess of Palestinian transportation routes with it's heavy negative economic implicatioons.
Third, the sovereignty issues and administrative details of the holy sites was never resolved.
But most important is the definition of a Palestinian state. What Israel offered was really nothing more than autonomy - Israel control of airspace(ie Israel could not allow a commercial airliner to land at the Palestinian airport, if they did not like who was on board etc). If they did not want the Palestinian to build new houses they could disallow cement to come in the country etc. If the Palestinians manufactured a product that competed with Israel, the latter could not let it cross the border to markets in Europe etc. If the President of Iran wanted to visit Ramallah, Israel has the final say on whether he comes etc.
Until Israel is prepared to offer the Palestinians a "REAL STATE", there will be no peace. It's the same problem that existed at Camp David. I think the division of land is a manageable problem. I don't think realistic demilitarization is a problem but being at the mercy of Israel for everything and everyone who enters or exits Palestine is the major stumbling block.
May 23, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
All good points. What the Israelis offered the Palestinians -- in the Oslo accord, Clinton's camp david, and whatever it was Olmert talked about-- lacked specifics. You fail to mention one other major ommission in the specifics department. That is the land exchange problem.
Israel seems to be offering Israeli land in exchange for most of their West Bank settlements. What is not really appreciated is that Israel is offering desert land in the Negev for some of the most agriculturally productive land in the West Bank. This is on a .7 to 1 ratio in hectares in Israel's favor. Basically the Israelis are offering barren real estate with no water resources in exchange for productive land with valuable deep water aquifers. For those with some understanding of land in the western US, it would like trading one acre of California central valley farm land (with its associated water rights) for .7 acres of Nevada desert that is devoid of water.
No Palestinian can accept that. Off hand I do not know the relative fair market values of the trade, but just a guess, if the Israelis insist on land trades than for every hectare of west bank land the Palestinians should receive 1000 or more hectares of desert. This land will never support an agricultural society, but it could have value as a natural preserve and tourist attraction.
I bring up what may seem an arcane point, but I do not think most city dwellers really understand the relative values of good ag land versus bad lands. So when the Israeli propaganda machine starts to complain about the Palestinian rejection of their 'fair trade' offer please keep this in mind.
May 23, 2009 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both of you raise sound points. I'm not as well versed in the specifics. Avishai does a pretty good job of explaining the proposal, where it falls short and where it shows progress. But the specifics are not my main concern. The point is that it is a proposal. That's how agreements begin. There has been no realistic counter-proposal that does not include the entire Palestinian diaspora returning to their pre-1948 homes. Abbas rejected the offer out of hand. And indeed, politically, he probably had no other choice, as did Arafat before him. To accept would mean going back on a founding principle. Israelis, it seems, would, if forced, sacrifice the settlements. But can we say the same of the right-of-return?
JDL: Realistically, do you think Israel can and should just give up full control of borders, airspace, etc. to the newly-created Palestinian state? Granted, that should be the end result, but given the history of the conflict, is the threat of violence and terror from across the border acceptable? With time and confidence, full autonomy and sovereignty are a necessity, but the Israeli government has an obligation to provide security to its citizens. This is why it would make sense to involve Jordan somehow, although they certainly want no part of it.
syvanen: To reiterate, it might not be the best deal, but it's a start. One thing that has confounded me is the derision for even proposing that the area of Arab villages in Northern Israel be included in the Palestinian state. I'm not sure why even suggesting such a thing is seen as somehow racist. Of course, one huge problem with this is that the residents apparently overwhelmingly wish to remain part of Israel - for economic reasons, I would imagine. But why is this not even on the table?
May 24, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because it is not on the table. It is not for either you or me to put it there.
I can see why Israeli Palestinians would prefer to stay on their side of the green line -- they may be discriminated against, but at least they are spared being massacred. If they desire to change their status, then it should be their decision and not ours.
May 24, 2009 3:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
AG, the Palestinians' core grievance is their expulsion from Israel. So giving up their right to return (a right which is consistent with international law and recognized by UN GAR 192) is a major concession in their view. I'm afraid supporters of Israel tend to dismiss this Palestinian demand for a right to return as if it were the request of a spoiled child. There is a great deal of arrogance in this attitude for two reasons:
By dismissing out-of-hand any Palestinian right of return, supporters of Israel send a message that Jews are more important than Arabs and that, when it comes to advancing Jewish aims, Arab rights must take a back seat. This naturally infuriates Arabs and makes arriving at a mutually acceptable deal more difficult.
All that said, the Palestinians have shown willingness to give up their right of return. However, they won't give it up cheaply. They want the Israelis to recognize it as a serious and important claim and trade something of value to the Palestinians in return for the Palestinians relinquishing this right. I'm afraid, though, that what the Palestinians are offered whenever a proposal is put forth is a semi-state, pockmarked with settlements and security zones, without a military, and with no control of water, airspace, or even its points if ingress and egress. The Palestinians would, in my opinion, be fools to give up their rights in exchange for something like this. Israel is always willing to accept a two-state solution--but only on the cheap. Unfortunately, a lasting resolution of the conflict will not come at bargain basement prices. Israel is going to have to recognize Palestinian demands as serious and is going to have to make some significant concessions. Without that, a two-state solution is impossible.
One other brief comment: On Gallilee, I think a lot of people believe Israel's strategy is to maximize its land while minimizing its Arab population. Essentially, in this view, Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing. The Gallilee deal is seen as a way to further advance this ethnic cleansing strategy. That's why it's seen as racist. That said, considering moving Gallilee to the Palestinian state (if the Arab Israelis wanted to move) should be something discussed. Personally, however, as you know, I don't think any of these population and land transfers will ever work. As I've said before, dividing the land between these two intermixed populations is impossible. Sharing the land somehow is now the only feasible solution.
Oh . . . and one other point . . . you are right that the settlements are hardly the only problem. They are a big problem and dismantling all of them (were it possible) would get us closer to a two-state solution, but it wouldn't get us all the way there. The other issues (including Palestinian right of return) are as big.
May 24, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Realistically, do you think Israel can and should just give up full control of borders, airspace, etc. to the newly-created Palestinian state?"
AG - Yes I do, most emphatically. When Israel signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan did they insist on control of those countries borders?
Egypt killed more Israelis than Hamas can even dream about and the Egyptian rhetoric prior to 1978 makes Hamas seem like choir boys. Like it or not, relations between states follow certain International norms. If someone rockets my territory, I'll use my military to fight back. Israel has a HUGE military edge and is in no danger of being over run by Palestinians, especially since a final peace agreement will presumably make Palestine devoid of heavy weapons.
Making peace with the Palestinians involves some risk just like it did for Isreal when they signed a deal with Egypt and withdrew from the Sinai. Yet, it has turned out to be the smartest thing Israel has done since their Independence.
A state without any border control becomes nothing more than an open air prison. The people in Gaza can testify to that. If Hamas had not shot one rocket into Israel do you REALLY think Israel would give up their total egress and ingress control? Total control of the Palestinians has been an objective since 1967. If Rabin had lived that might have changes but...
May 24, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Syvanen, this is not an arcane point, it is a core issue that must be discussed. And it underscores the truth about most two-state proposals offered to date: they are very good deals for Israel and poor deals for the Palestinians. In fact, they aren't as much deals as they are terms of surrender.
May 24, 2009 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The settlements were all but totally ignored in the US between about 2002 and 2007, except for the brief moment when Sharon closed them in Gaza. The "incessant bleating" that bothers you for some strange reason was preceeded by a much longer incessant silence.
The settlements are the Israeli counterpart to Arab terrorism -brutal, extreme, inhumane, completely without moral justification, and deliberately designed to torpedo peace efforts.
The key differences between bulldozing Arab villages and building fortress-settlements vs blowing up Tel Aviv cafes are
1) Until very recently, the settlements were not criticized in the US with anything remotely like the predictable rote condemnation of Palestinian extremism and terrorism. The idiotic one-sideness of the Bush admin. was exactly what Bin Laden et al hoped for.
2) Unlike terrorism which can never be completely eradicated and never has been anywhere in the world, those deal-busting settlements could be readily removed by the Israelis in a matter of days. They did so in Gaza.
May 23, 2009 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You'll get no disagreement from me that the Republican/Likud alliance has harmed both Israel and the US.
It's not opposition to the settlements that bothers me. It's the near-obsessive focus that removing the settlements is the first necessary step from which peace is sure to follow. The settlements are an obstacle, but they are not the obstacle, or even the biggest obstacle. Would that this were so, we would have had peace a long time ago. The settlements are a relatively recent phenomenon in the conflict. In the end, most Israelis would be willing to give them up and Israel has offered to do so (though, as someone will inevitably point out, not sufficiently).
I believe the difference between settlement building and suicide bombing is far more profound than you describe. I also believe you must know that.
May 24, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the settlements were "the biggest obstacle..we would have had peace a long time ago" ??
This is not "profound", this is convoluted illogic.
Try again if you think there may be a logical point buried in there somewhere.
May 24, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems pretty clear to me, but I can elaborate.
The settlements were not an issue when the Palestinians rejected the Peel division; they were not an issue when they rejected the UN partition; they were not an issue during the entire pre-1967 period when the West Bank and Gaza were ruled by Jordan and Egypt.
But let's look at more recent history. Say what you will about the Barak/Clinton proposals at Camp David, they would have largely done away with the settlements. Settlements were not the reason the process blew up into the Second Intifada. Multiple proposals have been floated under which Israel would quit the vast majority of the settlements. And look at what happened when Israel left the settlements in Gaza. Israel could quit the settlements tomorrow. The war would continue.
As I've said before, Israelis have shown that they will quit the settlements if they believe it would bring real peace.
May 24, 2009 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
The convoluted illogic is alas deeper than I feared. OF COURSE, settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were not an issue before 1967 because the Israeli occupation of the West Bank only began in 1967!
"Israelis have shown that they will quit the settlements if they believe it would bring real peace."
I am not standing aside from your inter-Jewish discussion with Colin, since I am not Jewish myself, but anybody of any religious inclination (or disinclination) and possessing half an ounce of objectivity and a basic knowledge of the history of Israel can readily recognize the above statement as an example of pure faith.
I can agree with you that settlements are not the only obstacle to peace, and that therefore removing them will not in-and-of-itself bring about peace, but why in the name of God (or whoever) should any AMERICAN want to support the continued brutality of these fanatical settlers, particularly the many whose ghastly ugly fortresses were deliberately positioned so as to make it impossible for a Palestinian state to exist without removing them? Do the Palestinians not have a right to a state? If not, then why should Israel exist either? If so, then why not insist on removal of settlements as a matter of basic human justice REGARDLESS of any (very probably positive) effect on the peace process?
Maybe there is a sudden emphasis on settlements now that seems surprising, but it is less surprising and outrageous than the many years of near-silence about them under Cheney-Bush-Rummy-Rice. These settlements are designed to make peace impossible; they are carried out on behalf of Israel's lunatic fringe. It is hypocritical to the extreme to insist -as AIPAC etc. do- that ANY single act of Arab terrorism justifies ANY monstrously disproportionate collective slaughter of innocents, and meanwhile pretend that the settlements are not also terribly outrageous and deserving of very clear denuciation (though not of throwing morality wholesale into the trash heap, as IDF did in Gaza). The settlers, or at least an overwhelming dominant sub-set of them, are the moral equivalent of Arab terrorists. There can be little doubt that if they did not have a state and an army and a US Congress of corrupt cowards behind them, they would be blowing up Palestinian civilians regularly and indiscriminately. Remember the King David Hotel. Maybe Jews as a whole have some special claims to morality and humanity due to their history and religion, but I am 100% with Colin that the recent governments of Israel are 180 degrees off from any such status.
The days when an American like me can trust Israel, as you evidently still do, are long gone. Those days existed once, and many years of lies and hypocrisy and deceit-based double-talk about things such as these settlements are the reason they no longer do. People like MJ would like that trust and support restored on a honorable and ethical basis and THAT is why they hammer upon the horror, the utter stupidity, and the sheer inhumanity of the idea that Israel can build and build and build fortresses for these lunatic settlers in perpetuity while loudly and rudely insulting the world's intelligence with bigoted crap about how the failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians is all the fault of the latter.
May 24, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Correction to paragraph 3 in my prior post:
I AM standing aside (or trying to) at least.
May 24, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the Palestinians were always against partition. And in my opinion they were right to be against it because it was unjust. The UN partition in particular gave nearly all the best land along the coastal plain and in the northern Jordan River valley to the Jewish minority and left the Palestinian Arab majority marginalized on poorer land in the east. Supporters of Israel tend to portray the Arab objection to partition as outrageous. In fact, anybody in the position of the Arabs would have objected to such a raw deal. The Arabs were two-thirds of the population and owned 90% of the land. Yet they got less than half the land and they lost most of the best land along the coast and in the northern Jordan River valley as well as the cities of Haifa and Jerusalem (the latter to the international community rather than to the Jewish state).
May 24, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Arab opposition in 1947 was understandable and not outrageous, but it was also stubborn, narrow-minded, myopic, and cannot be ignored as one cause of the present mess.
In many ways their methods cannot be condoned, but the Zionists had a plan for achieving statehood and the talent to make it happen and work. The Palestinians seem forever wedded to eternal martyrdom and infighting.
Don't misunderstand: I would support a total U.S. and international embargo and blockade of Israel (not as a first resort and without warning, but "on the table" as a spur to negotiations) until Israel grants the Palestinians the state and a reasonable contiguous chunk of territory on which to run it, as they got 60 years ago, but I have grave doubts about the post-statehood Palestinians' ability to avoid leaping from Israel's hell into their own hell.
May 24, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Arab opposition in 1947 was understandable and not outrageous, but it was also stubborn, narrow-minded, myopic . . .
I guess it's easy to say that when one is speaking from the US in 2009. But to a Palestinian Arab in 1947, the idea that the West could unilaterally partition their land and give more than half of it to a minority of recent immigrants from Europe seemed preposterous (as well as unjust).
In many ways their methods cannot be condoned, but the Zionists had a plan for achieving statehood and the talent to make it happen and work.
Nation-states and nationalism are European political constructs, which with the Zionists were completely familiar and comfortable. The Palestinians, on the other hand, were accustomed to a very different political order of Islamic empire. The Zionists--Europeans and backed by the dominant European states that were imposing the Western political structure on the rest of the world--had a huge advantage over the Palestinians because of this difference in preconceptions about the conventional political order. The Zionists were indeeded talented, organized, and highly motivated--but they also had huge advantages over the Palestinians because they belonged to the dominant European culture and the Palestinians didn't.
The Palestinians seem forever wedded to eternal martyrdom and infighting.
If so, it is very much a shotgun marriage.
May 24, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points, Purple, except this one:
"the idea that the West could unilaterally partition their land and give more than half of it to a minority of recent immigrants from Europe seemed preposterous (as well as unjust)"
As your other remarks correctly note, the Palestinians had never had a state of their own, at least nothing remotely approaching a post-medieval western nation-state. The UN in 1947 offered them an end to colonial rule and on a portion (far more generous than anything available since) of the land that that they, and many Jews, rightly considered their homeland. Tough, but hardly preposterous, or wildly atypical of the messy post-World War II decolonization process in many other regions across the world in those years. And far less "unjust" than being a colony of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, etc.
I cannot accept the implied notion of the Palestinians as innocent victims. For every Jew who is willing to publicly state that Israel shares huges amounts of blame with the Palestinians, there may be five or ten who bombastically pretend that it is all the Palestinians' fault. When, however, Palestinians make public statements -e.g. directly and verbally, not indirectly by blowing themselves, and their future, and bystanding cafe-dwellers or bus-riders up- the ratio of common sense to ridiculous and total one-sidedness is even lower.
As an American, I am frankly sick of listening to this boringly predictable and quite useless one-sidedness. If I complain much more on this website about it coming from the Israel-is-always-righters than from the Israel-is-inherently-racist,colonial,evil,etc-ers, this is mainly because the blindly-anti-Palestinian viewpoint is heard thousands of times more often in the halls of Congress and the US news media than is the dogmatic anti-Israel viewpoint. It does not mean that BOTH views are not full of utter unAmerican crap. I have always had great respect, for example, for the comments of Hanan Ashrawi, but she seems to be one in a million, and it has been many years since she was regularly quoted in either the U.S. or international news media. This is a pity, for sure, but I cannot believe that it is 100% the fault of Israel, even though it has been doing terrible things since the end of the 2000-01 negotiations.
May 24, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
May 24, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
So which Palestinians precisely to you base your opinions of them on?
May 24, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should have probably clarified that my opinion here is mainly about Palestinian leadership and spokespeople on US TV, radio and other forums over the past 20+ years; I do not claim to have a precise composite view of the Palestinian masses as a whole. I cannot recall specific names, but I must have witnessed scores of shouting matches masquerading as interviews or debates between totally one-sided anti-Israel and anti-Palestinian speakers. My memory is naturally vague because practically every minute of each of these many talking-past-each-other sessions was a complete insult to the intelligence of any informed objective audience member, and a total waste of time.
Arafat, of course, does come to mind. He did at least have a sense of humor, and a way with words, and after all charmed the Oslo folks into giving him a Nobel Peace prize, but there was nothing cute or funny about the horrible effects his misrule had on the Palestinian people.
May 25, 2009 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly, PTroub, we hear very few of the many more moderate Palestinian voices on US TV. The Palestinian community is much more diverse than most of us here in the US know. And better educated as well. This is not to deny that there are plenty of crazies--we all know there are--but there are also many thoughtful, intelligent, and fair-minded people. I do think, however, that if you knew real Palestinians and their attitudes and experiences a bit better, you would never have said this:
The UN in 1947 offered them an end to colonial rule and on a portion (far more generous than anything available since) of the land that that they, and many Jews, rightly considered their homeland. Tough, but hardly preposterous, or wildly atypical of the messy post-World War II decolonization process in many other regions across the world in those years. And far less "unjust" than being a colony of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, etc.
I cannot accept the implied notion of the Palestinians as innocent victims.
This sounds like something that would have been spoken by a British colonial governor. I think you're trying to be fair and balanced in placing equal blame for the conflict on Israelis and Palestinians, but I'm afraid, in doing that, you're being a bit dismissive about the real experience of the Palestinians. I hardly have the time to go into all the details of the history, but I'll simply say the uneven position today of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs is very much the consequence of a horribly uneven deal given to the two peoples by the British and their friends in the UN. I'm not sure it's truly fair or balanced to treat the Israeli and Palestinian positions as equivalent when the two groups were treated so unequally at the outset. To be fair and balanced, you need to look at the details of the situation more closely and then determine whether the two sides have equal grievances. I think if you do that, you'll find the Palestinians have a much larger grievance than the Israelis.
May 25, 2009 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink