Doing The Numbers: Obama's Window
The many questions in Yediot Aharonot's weekend poll gives us a feel for Israeli society, much like many touches give the blind man a feel for the elephant. My friend Jo-Ann Mort suggests that the key finding is a solid majority for evacuation of settlements; and its is true, and reassuring, that by 52% to 43%, respondents now actually favor a "freeze." But I think we might keep feeling around.
The responses do reveal Obama's window of opportunity. But the window is small and it will take consistent outside power, hard and soft, to pry it open. The questions are themselves a kind of code. The responses reveal a deeply divided country that would prefer not to confront its own divisions.
FIRST, THE BAD news. About 54% approve "natural growth" in the more than 150 settlements that already exist. So saying "freeze" new settlements may simply mean no new settlements are necessary to consolidate Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories, whatever the fate of this presence proves to be. Besides, the majority for a freeze, like the minority against "natural growth," includes Arab respondents. If we are speaking of Israeli Jews alone, the numbers are more discouraging.
To the question, "Should the illegal outposts be evacuated?," 70% say yes and 25%, no. Think of the latter number as the core of the hard right, people who will turn on Netanyahu as readily as they turned on Ariel Sharon if the settlement project is put in jeopardy. When you eliminate Arab respondents, you can assume about a third of Jews. The larger right, about 41%, says Israel should "not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a peace deal." Think of them as a layer of reactionaries added to the ideologues.
We are not looking here at Pollster.com data about, say, whether Virginia will fall into the blue column. This is not winner takes all. It is loser spoils everything. Israel's right is more like Serbia's in the 1980s than Virginia's in 2008. They live in a world apart. Some 12% say they will "resist" the evacuation of settlers. This is about a third of the third, 600,000 people, as many people as those who lived in the Palestinian Jewish Yishuv in 1948. They are armed. My working hypothesis, based on results of the recent election, is that these people disproportionately live in and around Jerusalem, the territories and in the development towns of the south.
WHICH BRINGS ME to the peace camp. To the question, "Should the birthrate in the settlements be taken under consideration and therefore allow construction for the sake of natural growth?," 54% say yes, 42% say no. The latter number is, in this case, the peace camp's core constituency, people who have come to regard the settlers and the orthodox as a threat to Israel's future and place in the world; they are unwilling to cut settlers any more slack. Their number is almost exactly equal to the 41% who say they are not "disappointed by Obama's policy towards Israel," and the 44% of those who say Netanyahu will "eventually agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
But we are speaking here mainly of people in the upper crust of the Tel-Aviv-to-Haifa corridor on the coastal plain, people with their face to America, Europe, and global opportunities. We are also speaking here of Arab citizens who, in a climate of tension, withdraw from ordinary politics entirely. Levels of cooperation between Israeli Jews and Arabs in political life remain slight, even in the peace camp, alas. If the right, opposing the government, provokes open violence, Israeli Arabs will themselves become violent and push the center to the right.
I have said often that the core constituency of the peace camp is very wary of directly confronting the core of the settlers and their sympathizers. The evidence for this fear is in the response to the vague question: "Is Obama's policy good for Israel?" This really translates as, Wouldn't you rather have a president like Bush who just loved us to crazy and helped us preserve the status quo? Some 53% say Obama is bad for Israel, and only 26% say good. There is an inchoate tension underlying this response, not a dispassionate assessment of whether the policy itself is right. There is no other way to explain why only 26% say Obama's policy is good, but some 55% say Israel should "agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a peace deal." (Again, take out Arabs and we are looking at a small minority of Jews eager for a confrontation.)
THE GOOD NEWS is really in the question, "Should Netanyahu acquiesce in Obama's demands or reject these even at the cost of sanctions?" Once the question is, in effect, What do you fear more, a confrontation with the settlers, or a world without America?, 56% say go with America. Note well: the rightist 40% say, fuck it, if America wants a showdown we'll give them one. The swing here, 15-20%, are mainly Russians, more educated Mizrahi Jews, and young people who otherwise imagine themselves strategic hardliners, but cannot imagine Israel as a Western pariah state.
And here, precisely, is Obama's opening. If he can maneuver Netanyahu into becoming, like Tzipi Livni, an advocate for preserving relations with America over any other concern--if Obama can, as he started to even before the Cairo speech, change Israel's national conversation from Iranian power to American power--he can at least hope to get a cooperative government that will enjoy majority support in the face of provocation from the violent minority.
If, for example, Obama and the Quartet can get Netanyahu to sign off on "two-states," which carries greater symbolic importance after Cairo, it seems almost inevitable that Netanhayu will give Livni what she wants to join a National Coalition. Among Kadima voters, 52% to 41%, would want Livni to join.
A unity government organized to respond to Obama will marginalize the hard right in the government, something that cannot be done in the streets--at least, not immediately. It will take a generation of shows of force by international troops and investors, of secular peace and economic growth, to thin out the Israeli right. Ditto Hamas. If Obama started a peace process in Cairo, this is it
The Ynet poll recently cited here has apparently annoyed Dr Aaron Lerner (of Imra). He, or someone, has made the effort to publish the results of it and 3 other polls side-by-side with direct comparisons of relevent questions.
Here is Imra's snark about the Ynet polling data:
"#4 Should Netanyahu accept Obama's demands or reject them even at the cost of sanctions [IMRA: to Yediot Ahronot and Dr. Mina Tzemach's credit, they have once again come up with wording to get the desired results so that they can lobby for the policies they support via the poll. The question mentions
the threat of sanctions but fails to actually cite the American demands.
One wonders what the pollsters read over the phone about American sanctions before they popped this question. The wording of the question including the mention of sanctions only appears in the Friday supplement while the front section carries the result with the headline "56% of Israelis: Obama's
demands should be met".]
Yes 56% No 40%"
For the fruits of Imra's labors....
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=43823
June 6, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The one mildly hopeful spot in that poll is that when asked,
Should Netanyahu acquiesce to Obama's demands or reject these even at the cost of sanctions?
56% answered "acquiesce" and 40% answered "not acquiesce". It's an awkwardly worded question, but in conjunction with the other questions and answers, my reading is that Israelis feel they are being pushed into something they don't want to do, but that a majority of Israelis are willing to say "uncle" and submit, if the only alternative is sanctions. I would conclude from these results that without a credible prior threat of sanctions, Obama's plan is going nowhere.
But let us recall that, so far, Obama's "demands" consist only in a settlement freeze. He has articulated as a broad aim the creation of a Palestinian state, but has given zero geographical definition to that aim. And numbered among the Israelis who are willing to accept a Palestinian state are included those who have no intentions whatsoever of giving up any substantial portion of Jerusalem or the existing settlements, and are only willing bestow the scraps on that so-called Palestinians state. So right now, it things don't look good.
The day before they published the poll Jo-Ann Mort cited, Ynet published a different poll: the War and Peace Index compiled by The Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution. Among other results, that poll found:
A majority of 53% said Israel should not agree to evacuate all settlements, even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians depended on it, while 41% said they support evacuation.
Bad news. But note also that this poll is based on a random sample of all adult Israelis, including Arabs. One suspects then that Jewish Israeli opposition to evacuating the settlements is overwhelming.
The other thing that emerges from both the Peace Index and the other Ynet poll is that Israelis really don't like Obama. I worry that neither the White House nor Obama's supporters in the US have yet grasped how heavy is the political load that needs to be lifted to achieve a peaceful and durable resolution of this interminable conflict. One thing American Jews might think about is what kind of campaigns they can conduct to get some movement in Israeli public opinion, and move more of the country's population out of the angry, paranoid and fanatical hole into which they have sunk.
What is going to be essential is that Obama enunciate a geographically honest, reasonably detailed and very firm US vision of what the final settlement is expected to look like when the process has been completed; that he follows that prescriptive proposal up with a realistic timetable with benchmarks, with responsibilities laid out for both sides; and that he commits to sanctions that will kick in on the appropriate party if the benchmarks are not met. He's going to need to enlist a unified global front to accomplish this. And he is going to need to do this sooner rather than later, while he is enjoying abundant political capital, and before the US election season gets underway. He will have to endure tremendous political heat if he is serious, and it might even cost the Democrats some seats in 2010. But it's the only way.
Obama is also going to need another speech, one in which he tells a compelling story about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a story more frank and reality-based than Americans are accustomed to hearing, and uses that story to explain why the course he is pursuing is the only realistic, promising and just one available. And he will have to prepare for this speech, and then follow it up, with a fairly comprehensive and subtle campaign of public communication, to try to turn his narrative into conventional wisdom, and defeat the tired, reactionary and biased narratives that still prevail in the United States.
Obama will be denounced by many powerful figures, people who are absolutely and tenaciously opposed to the plan I have outlined, out of their deepest convictions and fears, and will be prepared to use every tool they have available to use against him. He is going to have to consider what hardball tools he has available to use to counter them. Rahm Emanuel is supposed to be good at this sort of thing. Let's see if he can earn his keep.
June 6, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
A good analysis except, and it is a big "except," for the talk of "Obama's window of opportunity."
Obama is the president of the USA, not Israel. Public opinion in Israel does NOT determine what is in the interest of the United States. America's interest lies in a land-for-peace agreement, negotiated or imposed, as soon as possible. Among other things, this means that all settlements not closely adjoining the 1967 line must be removed as soon as possible. Those settlements not on the line NEVER had ANY purpose except to torpedo the kind of peace deal that is in AMERICA's interest, by making a viable Palestinian state impossible. They are as much anathema to peace as are Palestinian terrorist attacks. Obama and the U.S. need to oppose them vigorously until they are removed without regard to the vagaries of Israeli polls, or any statistical "windows" therein.
Talking of a "window of opportunity" for a peace deal mainly enhances a window of opportunity for terrorism and violence to seriously damage any peace process. This approach (which the NY Times today also foolishly or otherwise took) is a recipe for a repeat of 2000-01. If peace comes it will be because a strong movement pushes for it consistently come hell or high water, month after month, year after year. No more foolishness about "windows," please.
June 6, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point PTroub. The U.S. will either do what is right or continue doing what is wrong, and Israeli polls should have nothing to do with it.
June 6, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is little more than reverse Bushism, which sees foreign policy as a matter of us choosing outcomes for the rest of the world with no participation from them. Israel is a democracy, and even if it weren't, this is politics we're dealing with here, and all politics is local. Of course the political opinions of the people actually affected matter, if only to gauge how they'll react when the US, in your world, magically imposes the "right" solution that's "in US interests."
In the end, actually achieving our interests will require some very skillful politics, not just a diktat from DC. If Obama is serious about trying to solve the problem, he'll be paying close attention to these dynamics, and their counterparts in the Territories and around the region (though I'm unsure if this level of public opinion research is available for many of the Arab & other Muslim populations...)
June 7, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "Obama's Window"
SEE ALSO - "Max Blumenthal: Feeling the Hate In Jerusalem on Eve of Obama's Cairo Address"
(EXCERPT) Max Blumenthal writes: On the eve of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt, I stepped out onto the streets of Jerusalem with my friend Joseph Dana to interview young Israelis and American Jews about their reaction to the speech. We encountered rowdy groups of beer sodden twenty-somethings, many from the United States, and all eager to vent their visceral, even violent hatred of Barack Obama and his policies towards Israel. Usually I offer a brief commentary on my video reports, but this one requires no comment at all. Quite simply, it contains some of the most shocking footage I have ever filmed. Watch it and see if you agree. (Warning: this video contains profanity and material offensive to just about anyone.)
VIDEO - http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html
June 6, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting video. I seriously question how representative the ignorant drunks talking there ("Obama is a terrorist...I don't know who Bejamin Netanyahu is...") are of the Israeli electorate as a whole. The rude and badly warped attitudes expressed are fairly consonant, however, with the most statements and actions of the U.S. Congress concerning the Mideast. Members of Congress, absent a sober public-minded minority, need to be powerfully woken up and jolted into the reality that their job is to work for Americans, not foul-mouthed Israeli bigots.
June 7, 2009 5:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are unrepresentative of Jewish Israelis for the simple reason that they are U.S. citizens or U.S. Israeli dual citizens on tour or visit in israel. They represent the opinion of Jewish-American Zionist youth.
June 7, 2009 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for clarifying. A case, it would then seem, of foul-mouthed AMERICAN bigots who are not representative of Americans, Jewish or not Jewish. If the US Congress could finally be forced to confront this reality, and its repeated alignment with the bigots, such videos will have served a most valuable purpose.
June 7, 2009 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the video has a role, seriously. I think it's good for us all to understand soberly just what we are funding, even if not all the beneficiaries are sober. I'm not saying it's representative or fair (of course it isn't), but I think it provides a glimpse of something for naive people who wanted to believe it's an angelic Holy Land society over there of devout people deeply committed to their U.S. alliance.
"Fuck Obama"? My, my.
June 8, 2009 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent analysis, Bernard. And solid comments too.
There is very little positive to be gleaned from the polls of Israeli opinion, and the only thing that gives me hope is that Obama is holding firm in spite of his ability to read and interpret these same polls.
The fact that his own gutless, craven party has not yet thrown him (or at least his Mideast policy) under the bus is a testament to the president's political skills.
June 6, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
One poll in Israel is less than snapshot and oh yeah, Rahm is suspected of being a fan of toppling bibi and Shmuel Rosner notes that lefty(?) Israeli's are suspected of helping. Shlomo Ben Ami is cited.
This concluding para is what struck me because of the troubling recent indications that the IDF is unwilling and apparently structurely unable (post Gaza disengagement) to take on the "pioneers" in the WB:
A unity government organized to respond to Obama will marginalize the hard right in the government, something that cannot be done in the streets--at least, not immediately. It will take a generation of shows of force by international troops and investors, of secular peace and economic growth, to thin out the Israeli right.
What international troops could be tasked with removing the settlers?
NATO? US? Turks? Russians? Sihks?.....Turks?
If Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Barak agree that IDF should be largely kept out of those efforts because of internal instabily factors.......the implications about the state of Israel's army are very worrisome.
At the very least, SOMEBODY needs to devote whatever it takes to establish a means and mechanism to deal with those behind the third round of "rightist" death threats to IDF brass who been involved in confrontations related to demolitions. Killing a targeted commander's children is mentioned in one of the letters. Israel has allowed state of affairs to fester for far far too long.
It's a matter of internal security.
June 7, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
You raise an important, if disturbing point, lally. Even if Netanyahu signs on to a complete freeze, the nitty gritty details of an eventual evacuation are still to be resolved, and no matter how it's done, it won't be pretty. Personally, I think the best way to achieve the ultimate goal is for the IDF not to try to evacuate the settlers at all, but instead the Israeli government should simply tell them that they have the choice to live in the new country of Palestine or return to Israel.
My suspicion is that the majority of settlers would choose the latter option. The remaining ones could be dealt with by an international force should they engage in violence. It sounds extreme, but because it would avoid a settler-IDF confrontation, it might garner more public support than one might expect at first glance. Perhaps as an added incentive, those settlers deciding to stay could be required to relinquish Israeli citizenship, while those returning could be provided a variety of social and financial supports. It's not a perfect solution, but it probably would be the solution that would produce the least violence.
June 7, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, Wordie. You make a powerful suggestion here. I think it makes a lot of sense to require those who decided to stay behind to relinquish their Israeli citizenship, while those returning could be provided a variety of social and financial supports.
I have often wondered if secular Israeli voters resent the fact that many (most?) of the ultra-Orthodox settler types claim exemption from all military service due to their obligation to study Torah (and procreate like crazy).
How would the settler types rethink their obligations if they could no longer count on everyone else to defend them and their families?
June 7, 2009 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has a window of opportunity for doing what? removing outposts? Forcing a freeze on the settlement? And for how long?
Best case scenario: After some pressure an public Israeli realization of the cost of alienating a US president, there is a new "peace camp" government in Israel that
1. keeps endless "negotiations" for a "one state + three bantustans" solution.
2. keeps expanding the major settlements, the apartheid wall zone and the Jordan valley control without making a fuss about it.
3. occasionally confront the most extreme settlers for a good headline.
This is the Livni platform in a nutshell.
Will Obama demand more than that?
Read my lips. He won't. That kind of platform is all he needs to to keep both the Zionists and the defense industry behind him while letting his Arab autocrats allies, Mubarak, the Sauds, etc. save face.
June 7, 2009 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Realistic scenario for Obama, but he is only one player, albeit the most powerful by far. Will Clinton, Mitchell, signers of the 2003 Geneva initiative, etc., roll over and play dead while nothing substantive is accomplished? Not likely. The real question is: what will all these participants, including Obama, do when the first post-peace-talk-start bomb blows up a Tel Aviv cafe?
June 7, 2009 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Realistic scenario for Obama, but he is only one player, albeit the most powerful by far. Will Clinton, Mitchell, signers of the 2003 Geneva initiative, etc., roll over and play dead while nothing substantive is accomplished? Not likely.
And why not? Are you suggesting that Clinton and Mitchell are true idealists unlike the opportunist Obama? The U.S. political establishment as a whole is worried that the occupation is making the Middle East ungovernable, leading to the growing popularity and strength of Hizbulla, Hamas, and non-cooperating states like Syria and Iran and weakening U.S. client states.
What are they going to do about it? A roll back of the settlements in order to make a Palestinian state is impossible without destroying Israel as we know it. The dominant institution in Israel is the military, for which the occupation is the center of life, ideologically, financially, and in terms of personnel. The political class is equally dependent on the settlements as the whole structure of the state and its agency is infused with the settlers ethos (and often personnel). There is a petty Israeli economy of land development and small industry that lives off the occupation. every tenth Jewish Israeli is a settler. Evacuating the settlements is like evacuating California. The public political mood is deeply chauvinist and indoctrinated and any more than symbolic compromise will require a parliamentary approval without a Jewish majority (relying on Arab votes, illegitimate in Israel).
After three decades of explaining how morally obliged the US is to defend Israel and with the Jewish US establishment assuming an important role of funding the political system, do you think the US political class is capable of pushing Israel to the breaking point? And if they could would they want to?
They have no solution. And neither does the Israeli "peace camp." The only hope they play with is to manage the occupation, to give U.S. allies in the region enough political coverage so that they aren't completely humiliated. To create frameworks and road-maps and plans and processes and blueprints and agreements and milestone and whatnot.
And if the contradictions explode and push comes to shove, the U.S. establishment will risk breaking Egypt before it risks breaking Israel.
June 7, 2009 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...Evacuating the settlements is like evacuating California..."
Yeah, that's got me thinking too. There's really a whole load of things that aren't being discussed.
Where are they expected to go? -- Back to Israel, but that's not where most of them came from. Does Israel even really want them -- many being constant trouble makers, and expensive too. [Palestinians I shouldn't think would want them either -- they have enough problems of their own]. Weren't they really only invited and used for the sole purpose of populating Judea and Samaria to show the world they can't be shifted? And as you said, emotionally the "...occupation is the center of life...", especially for the military. Food for thought.
Also you said: "...There is a petty Israeli economy of land development and small industry that lives off the occupation..."
I'm asking this as a serious question, as I don't know the answer -- Is the West bank's 'construction', farming and water industry really that 'petty' when it comes to looking at Israel's diverse economy?
Yeah, and even if Bibi gets fired and Livni comes in, I don't get the vibe she's gonna want to change things that much -- She just seems better at hiding her plans is all.
June 7, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The solution is simple - you give each settler a generous amount of money - just like when they build a freeway through your neighborhood, only a more generous amount.
You'd be surprised how many settlers can be comfortably relocated for the price of a fleet of F18s.
June 7, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
The US has already provided "...$7.9 billion in loan guarantees for housing or settling Soviet Jews in Israel..." Some of which has not been spent.
CRS Rep. for Congress U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel [PDF]
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/100102.pdf
Maybe you're right -- maybe we should even start 'swapping' military aid for 'relocation' aid and help Israel with the building of settlements outside Tel Aviv so there will be a place to welcome those settlers when they are evacuated from the West Bank.
Good Idea.
June 7, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
and 'East Jerusalem'.
June 7, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've actually got it wrong. In the US at least, if the local community votes to build a freeway through your property, you are only compensated market value for the property you have to surrender.
There is no boatload of cash to the property owner that gets railroaded. Your perception is a work of fiction.
June 9, 2009 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
By calling the economy of the occupation 'petty' I meant only to differentiate it from the better paying corporate sector which is concentrated on the coastal plain. There is a correlation between class, religious/secular identification and residence, and that correlation plays out in Israeli politics.
June 7, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real question is: what will all these participants, including Obama, do when the first post-peace-talk-start bomb blows up a Tel Aviv cafe?
You keep asking really easy questions. They will blame the Palestinians for once again undermining the peace process, because, again, the goal is not to advance anything or reduce suffering or create a fairer world, the goal is to manage the contradiction between two competing U.S. imperial clients, Israel and the Arab Quislings.
And that is why they will also keep escalating the tension with Iran.
June 7, 2009 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll go out on a limb and say you're just wrong. This is the old thinking, pre-Obama. And you'd be right if Dennis "No Results" Ross were driving the process, but he isn't. Obama and Hillary and George "I fixed Northern Ireland" Mitchell are. Aided by Chief of Staff Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel, who has seen it all, heard Bibi's conjob before, knows where the skeletons are buried, and is reputed for "mowing down" his opponents.
This administration's goals are for solving the problem, unlike before. The goals in the past were to see how far we could get, or to constructively manage the relationship, or to hope we got lucky. Much was said about how "ultimately it's up to the parties." This is different: Obama wants this resolved, not managed. He intends to get his way, and I believe he will.
June 8, 2009 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I may be wrong. I have no crystal ball. But saying so doesn't make it so. So far Obama haven't said or done anything about Israel-Palestine that Bush didn't. I'll say things are different when I see different things.
But if you want to change the way we count the years, instead of B.C.E. and A.D. use P.O. (pre-Obama) and A.O. (after Obama), you are welcome to do it.
June 8, 2009 4:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I should have said I *think* you're wrong -- anyhow I noted I was out on a limb and I hope not too far, also lacking any crystal ball.
I think Obama had this all mapped out last summer before the primaries were over. Picking Hillary gets her out of health care (where she'd sink any effort as a lightning rod for Republican fury), almost certainly gets her out of 2012 race, gets her AND Bill both out of one's hair generally, and guess what: she's got great friend-of-Israel credentials (which you pretty much need if you are going to be running in New York). He may have a Muslim name, but Rahm sure doesn't and Hillary's an Israel booster.
Are Bibi and his friends going to smear her as an anti-Semite? Carry around her coffin in effigy as they did to Rabin leading up to when their supporters murdered the man? It probably wouldn't be smart in her case. She's a global superstar and she's hard to do a number on. I think Obama means business, and has long seen the painfully obvious link that so very many tens of millions of Americans gleefully ignored under Bush's let's-all-be-completely-stupid policy: we pay for this utterly insane Hatfields vs. McCoys blood feud with our own lives.
Obama wants it not managed, but over with. And he intends to get nothing less. MHO.
June 8, 2009 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just take an occasional glance at the daily Haaretz in Israeli and you'll understand how what you purport to be outlandish being undermined as you type.
Rahm Emanuel is being portrayed in the Israeli press as a far left winger hater. Imagine that.
Watching Blumenthal's video link that was posted up thread will bring clarity to the whole issue.
June 9, 2009 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Hebrew you mean?
I didn't realize it was that bad.
June 9, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rec'd. Nothing to add, Bernard. Just wanted to say this is the most helpful analysis of the internal dynamics in Israel that I have seen. Thank you. Much appreciated.
June 7, 2009 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This favorable attitude toward "natural growth" of settlements seems more disturbing than you make it appear: 54% approve of something that is absurd on its face.
It means, in fact, that 54% approve of a society in which Arabs are at best second class citizens. After all, the Arab birth rate is by all accounts higher than the Jewish birth rate - therefore if "natural growth" were a legitimate reason for throwing other people out of their homes and applied equally, more Jews than Arabs would be displaced under this "policy". Of course it isn't legitimate or applied equally. I find this even more problematic than you do.
"natural growth" might better be called slow-motion ethnic cleansing. I'm tired of the euphemisms.
June 7, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I'm not sure if your comparison of birth rates is entirely accurate.
The Arab birth rate is well-known to be much higher than that of most secular Israeli Jews, however... I'm not sure if it is higher than that of the right-wing ultra-Orthodox settlers.
Can someone with access to the actual data can clarify?
June 7, 2009 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anybody have any idea yet about what Obama's plan is? There might be some vague hints about the plan in the Cairo speech, but I can't really figure out yet what it is supposed to be.
One thing that is really starting to concern me is the obsessive fascination with a settlement freeze. The settlement freeze, which is only a necessary first step that will get us about two inches down a ten-mile long road, is quickly becoming a golden calf, dangerously worshipped as an end in itself, and portrayed as a rugged test of Obama's Herculean prowess. Such a portrayal is almost comical in the absurdly diminished expectations in comprises.
It's easy to see where this is going. The settlement freeze will be turned into a cause, and in the process that cause will itself be transformed into the key to peace and the hope of humanity. By the time it comes, the freeze will have become a fetishized political idol with which Israel can legitimize the facts on the ground.
What is going to happen is that Netanyahu will fuss and struggle about the freeze as long as he can, building it up yet further in the minds of American supporters of Israel and Obama, and turning it into a mano-a-mano struggle with the great American savior. Netanyahu will eventually give in, giving the Obama fans the emotionally satisfying victory they crave for their hero. Obama's supporters will then portray this minimal first step as the triumph of peace and the virtual end of the conflict.
Those who seek to remind everyone that the settlement freeze was just supposed to be the first tiny step in a much more comprehensive process of ending the occupation will be denounced as unreasonable extremists.
June 7, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anybody have any idea yet about what Obama's plan is?
I think the main current plan is to try to influence the Iranian elections towards moderate results. After they know those results, then they will decide what the rest of the plan will be.
And that is not totally about Israeli fears. That is also about Iraq and Afghanistan(where there is still American blood and treasure, that should therefore be Obama's priority,) not to mention it also concerns a large segment of the Sunni world.
I believe this so much that I even caught myself wondering if our CIA had something to do with agitating some of this stuff going on in Baluchistan province and Tabriz. Probably not, because I can't see Obama supporting sectarian groups of any kind, think he has a strong natural bent against that, but I thought it for a moment nonetheless.
June 7, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Messages for Iran in the speech:
Messages for Iran in his speech:
The timing of the speech has the reason of Iran. All that was needed at this time was to signal that there will be a new approach that attempt to understand the problems of the Islamic world--over to you, Iranians (and perhaps, secondarily, Pakistanis, hoping for support of the Swat push without fear of Bush adminstration ulterior motives.)
June 7, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a report in Haaretz this morning that State is telling Israel that if it wants to keep building in the major settlement blocs, it has to negotiate a border now. I don't know if this is true, but it strikes me as a good place to start: the eventual border (land swaps, etc.) apart from Jerusalem strikes me as the most tractable of the issues, and will give all an interim stage that will isolate and marginalize the craziest of the settlers, while providing a basis for Arab states to show gestures of goodwill.
June 7, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who would they negotiate the border with? Abbas?
June 7, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
In part. There will need to be a formula or approach for representation of disparate Palestinian interests, so few or none feel so left out that they throw bombs. It will also have to be understood at the start that the bomb-throwers do *not* have a veto over the process and no, we are not going to "halt" negotiations because some obstructionist wants it that way and is willing to toss grenades in order to wreck the process.
June 8, 2009 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does anybody have any idea yet about what Obama's plan is?
Nope -- still waiting for that 'plan'
All I've gleaned so far is Obama wants to achieve the final peace agreement within two years, and Netanyahu has got to come up with 'something'? by July.
However, heads-up apparently Netanyahu will be delivering a "...policy address next week laying out 'his' proposed road to Mideast peace..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/07/netanyahu-plans-major-pol_n_21
2265.html
Can't wait.
June 7, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I expect no disappointment: he wants to know now (not than July) a workable peace plan that excludes bantustan formulatins, not talks about talks or any of this age-old obfuscation. Let's get out the map, lay out the borders like George Mitchell is doing right now, NOT WHAT BIBI DREAMS ABOUT BUT REALISTIC BORDERS (unlike the negative contribution of that awful Dennis Ross). They can freeze settlements till this is finished in July. And if under the July plan there are a very few settlements inside those borders on some formula Arabs can accept, okay. Everything else goes. Then let's get it over with right away. Then, it's Miller time.
June 8, 2009 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would someone please recommend a book or series of articles and authors to read on zionism in Russia after the Soviet collapse? Thanks in advance.
June 7, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not even going to pretend I am knowledgeable about the complexities stated above. In general though, I supported Israel for many years and was very glad we "had their back", but no longer. I now resent them, quite a bit actually. I wonder, with all their bravado, do they not look at a map and see how precarious their situation is? I am happy to have a President that is not kissing their ass, at least not like in the past. I now perceive them like I would a spoiled, petulant child.
My point is, having embraced them for so many years, and feeling this way now, I suspect they have alienated many of us and our patience is wearing thin.
June 7, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just saw this comment (below) on Yahoo's news page; my question is, how much money do we give to Israel annually?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would strive for "maximum understanding" with Washington on peace issues but gave no sign he intends to bow to its demand to halt settlement expansion.
June 7, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi, Amelie.
Halting is the immediate next step, but it's not about halting but *removing*. It's been a fairly constant $3 billion in direct aid (over $2 billion of that being military aid with economic aid dropping and military increasing within the 3 billion) plus another $2 billion at least in loan "forgiveness," grants, and other screwy deals.
June 8, 2009 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Realistically, I do not expect the Israelis to buckle any time soon to Obama, nor to their increasingly perilous reality. They have been so accustomed to being coddled and supported by a largely ignorant American public – a public with fundamentally racist views of Arabs; a public drenched in propaganda-driven sympathy for Israel (and Jews in general) – that I don’t think they quite believe in the turning tide of opinion – an egregious error on their part.
Israel always believes someone will pop up and save them; they believe AIPAC and American fundamentalist Christians will save the day for them, currrently. Of course, they believed their position would always remain steadfast during the Cold War, when Israel was THE American proxy in the MidEast. We know how fast that changed. Meanwhile, the divide between those in Israel (and the U.S.) who understand the reality, and those who only see their illusions, is growing. And fast, too.
So, my point is that I feel there will be some heavy-duty ugliness before the Israelis will pry themselves out of their cave and into action. There will be whining, rage, violence, all manner of screeching about betrayal and victimhood and new holocausts and god. I hope very strongly that Obama has the will for this coming conflict, because it’s going to be bloody (figuratively and literally). I also think Hillary ought to be congratulated for actively taken a pro-sanity, pro-future stance and using her bull-dog tenacity not to ask, not to suggest, but to demand action and the beginning of resolution.
And kudos to Bernie Avishai for an excellent analysis.
June 7, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're on to something.
June 8, 2009 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me get this straight. The US economy is in a Depression; our national debt is at an all time high; millions of Americans don't have health care; millions are barely surviving in our inner cities ... and we're sending HOW MANY BILLIONS every year to this stupid little country of right wing, neocon extremists????? And we're doing this WHY??
June 7, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The how many billions is easy, a bit above 5.
As is widely published (as I noted above to Amelie), it's been a fairly constant $3 billion in direct aid (over $2 billion of that being military aid with economic aid dropping and military increasing in the last 13-14 years within the overall 3 billion) plus another $2 billion at least in loan "forgiveness," grants, and other screwy deals.
The why is harder and anyhow, you don't need me for that.
June 8, 2009 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The poll numbers reflect the fact that most Israelis are only interested in is security. They don't believe that forcing out the settlers and establishing a Palestinian state is going to bring Israel more security than they have right now. They're not inclined to go down that road. But they may be forced to if it means losing American support, because they desperately need our support to feel secure, especially with nations like Iran developing nuclear capability. Nevertheless, as long as most Israelis don't see any good options being proposed, they are more likely to desperately hang onto the status quo rather than take chances.
The real problem is America's obsession with the "two state solution" as the supposed panacea for all of Israel's problems. Clearly it isn't, as was demonstrated when Israel withdrew from Gaza and they started firing rockets into Israel. Israel is not Yugoslavia, and ceding territory will not necessarily bring peace.
It's time for Obama to begin thinking outside the "two-state box." Why not a 1 state democratic solution called Palestine? Jews and Arabs lived together for thousands of years before the establishment of Israel. Or if true democracy in a state where Arabs outnumber Jews is too much a Zionist heresy - give the West Bank back to Jordan and Gaza back to Egypt and hold them responsible for keeping the peace. Or if you really want a separate Palestinian state, show how it would be something other than a failed state lobbing missiles and suicide bombers into Israel.
The point is that Obama needs to be more creative in offering a solution that offers the real hope of more security for the people of Israel rather than less. Rather than merely pushing them a little further down a road they don't want to go.
America's role as arbiter and peacemaker necessarily means nudging both sides towards a solution that is in their long-term best interests. But when we arrive at a stalemate where neither side seems capable of moving in the direction we want them to go, it may be because we are not offering a more attractive vision for the future, rather than that we are not pushing hard enough.
June 7, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT: Laura Rozen is saying another member of the Center for New American Security CNAS [think tank] is joining the Pentagon. Noting that according to Justin Raimondo
the CNAS are our "New Neocons."
June 7, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink