On Not Taking Netanyahu Seriously
I'm perplexed that anyone takes Prime Minister Netanyahu's utterance of the "two state" phrase seriously.
First, he wrapped his "acceptance" of the concept in so many conditions that he rendered it worthless.
And, second, peacemaking requires some belief in the value of both peace and reconciliation.
When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat laid aside their enmity it was because they each saw the tragedy of continued war and the promise of peace.
Netanyahu doesn't. He was dragged, kicking and screaming, to utter a formula. He could barely bring himself even to do that.
His speech was meaningless. He is dedicated to holding on to the West Bank, continuing the occupation, and keeping the Palestinians subjugated.
Nothing in the speech indicated otherwise. He said what he had to say to make President Obama get off his back.
The speech changed nothing except for indicating, that even with US pressure, the Likud government has no interest in yielding an inch.
In that, and in that only, it has some value. It clarifies.
It clarifies.
It wasn't obvious already?
June 16, 2009 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're right, of course, that it has been obvious, though maybe less so to the general populace and still not fully so. It may thus still offer an advantage in that (if MSM can be shut up about the amazing significance of Bibi's I-offer-you-nothing "breakthrough"), the matter might be more properly cast as this:
Obama stated that he and the whole world neeed Israel's cooperation and how. Bibi replie to him him point-by-point, to go pound salt up his ass. Thus, Obama will now have to take a different approach, maybe one that doesn't involve Bibi quite as much. How exactly obama tackles this I don't know, however.
June 17, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm perplexed that anyone takes Prime Minister Netanyahu's utterance of the "two state" phrase seriously."
Any theories?
June 16, 2009 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who wants peace ? What sort of peace do they want ?
Mr BN takes a position that is most popular in his country. His supporters want to keep the situation the way it is. Do you hear anyone there clamoring for a border to be drawn ? Does anyone there really give a rat's behind about the 'other people' ?
The last 'peace' rally I saw filmed was a meeting of a tiny number of people, who appeared dispirited.
As for the American president's disapproval, it is hard to see how that changes anything. Military support, and every other sort of support, are not going to stop, are they ? Let's be frank.
The Americans and Europeans that are unhappy about this are just going to be frustrated. The way western democracies work nowadays, a citizen is forced to subsidize hundreds of activities that he/she finds distasteful. Tough luck.
People who want peace will have to be tough, very tough, to win peace. A desire for peace is confused with submissiveness and weakness. It is neither. Get some testosterone, peace-wishers : you are going to need it. Remember the Chinese guy who stopped the tank ? One guy stopped a tank - think about that.
June 16, 2009 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile, it's worth pondering just what sort of state the Palestinians would build, if and when it ever happens.
Probably one with a lot of stories like this one:
I agree with the comment by Martin Peretz, MJ's hero:
Countdown to accusations of hatred and racism in 3...2...1...
June 16, 2009 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to count down with such would-be irony that you expect people to call you a chauvinist, when you write in the words of such a chauvinist.
What you are saying is dreadfully familiar in this vile Hatfields vs. McCoys exchange:
They are animals. You will live to regret treating animals like people.
The question isn't why we so react to this, but how you can get up in the morning and look yourself in the mirror.
June 17, 2009 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Notice that Brad didn't have any problem justifying the IDF murder of hundreds of Palestinian children in Gaza in January.
Like most Zionists, he only supports the rights of Muslim women and children when they are threatened by Muslim men.
June 17, 2009 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where to begin with this vapid nonsense?
You have fallen into the trap - common among leftists - of assuming the Palestinians' dysfunctional society is entirely the fault of Israel and its occupation of the West Bank. Remove the occupation, the logic seems to go, and the Palestinians will revert back to a "normal" state and will become members in good standing of the civilized world.
I suppose this is possible, but it seems pretty unlikely, for two reasons:
1. A glance at the rest of the Arab world shows how difficult it is for Arab states to NOT become stagnant, illiberal autocracies. The Arab world is practically the last redoubt in the world of absolute monarchy. There are cruel dictators in other parts of the world, but no other part of the world is so filled with cruel dictators. Sure there are a few minor exceptions, but that's the rule.
2. Most of the Palestinian dysfunction is aimed at other Palestinians. Violence against Israel gets a lot of press, but the daily battles between clans, factions and parties in Palestine has a lot more impact on peoples' lives. Read the story above. It's an all too common scene. A society twisted by that much hate isn't going to recover any time soon.
These are the reasons to be pessimistic about the nature of a future Palestinian state, not that the Palestinians themselves are animals. We know they are not animals because it wasn't always like this. The Arabs of Palestine used to be among the most educated and civilized. Thus it's possible for them to be so again. I just don't see it happening any time soon. And a Palestinian state, while still morally justified, isn't going to accelerate the return to normalcy.
June 17, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Baloney, baloney, baloney. If they are redeemable as you say, then the moral obligation and the development imperative is to bring out the good side despite whatever obstacles, not snigger over the negative possibilities.
And I don't know about leftists (quite a word by the way) cuz I ain't way left of center, and I don't hang with anyone who is, and not everybody who disagrees with you is one.
June 17, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether you are a leftist or not is quite irrelevant. You are taking a leftist position on this issue. The Palestinians, in this view, are like children. They can't be expected to take responsibilities for themselves. Their actions are totally a product of their environment, of oppression. It is up to us, the guilty West, to make things right, to "bring out the good side".
June 17, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brad - Yes, the Palestinian culture today is pretty dysfunctional. Israel has to take a large portion of the blame because of it's stifling occupation. I spent a lot of time in Israel, including the west bank during the 50's and 60's. The Palestinian culture was vibrant and entreprenurial back then. One of the biggest problems was after 67, there was a significant emigration of the best and the brightest of the Palestinians to the west. It takes a long time to recover from that. On the other hand Israel benefited from the immigration of well educated Ashkenazi Jews. The Palestinians still value education of both men and women and once the boot of Israel's occupation is done, they will recover within a generation.
Please visit the West Bank and see first hand the tremendous pressure that occupation causes. On a number of the Jewish roads to the settlements park on the shoulder and watch a roadblock on the Palestinian unpaved road sometimes only 50 meters away. Watch the soldiers deliberately slow everything down so people have to wait many hours in the blazing sun. Watch the IDF pull carts of produce off to the side for inspection that will last days until the food rots.
Imagine yourself as a Palestinian trying to survive. Do you think that the stress might drive you to crazy thinking and sometimes action. In Kiryat Arba I've seen teen settlers with guns force Palestinian fathers to grovel at their feet in front of their families to beg and bark like dogs. What would you do in the face of such humiliation?
As far as violence in Palestinian communities in the old days it was far less than in Israel. Today, there is more partly because resistence has been militarized, including the awful killing of collaberators. However, I notice you did not say too much about Israel's mob problem and the drive by killings that happen in Tel Aviv and Haifa etc.
One last issue, your derogatory comments about arabs is too much of a generalization. Have you been to Beirut? It's a pretty vibrant place with an educated populace and great business sense. Yes, it's an inperfect democracy with a lot of senseless conflict but still thriving. Want to go to a happening place with incredibly exciting business and scoial scene - go to the Gulf States. Believe it or not they are those awful arabs. Say what you will about Iraq under Saddam but there was gender equality in business, scoiety and education. War has caused it to go backward at least 50 years. The same thing has happened to the Palestinians as a result of war and occupation. Yes, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, SA are 100 years behind the west in many qualities but their day will come also. Look at China after WWII and Japanese occupation. It was a disaster and they went through a number of convulsions but their time is coming also. Besides, speaking of dysfunction, I would not call Israel's government the model the arabs should follow.
Brad, I just have one question. Have you ever been to Israel and have you ever talked with a Palestinian? Have you ever been in the occupied territories and talked with settlers? You have very firm opinions based on????
June 17, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
JDL, I don't know how much of this dysfunction can be fairly ascribed to Israel. I can say, however, that autocracy, kleptocracy, religious extremism, sexism and rule by the sword are problems that plague the entire Arab world and are hardly unique to Palestine. I wouldn't be so quick to cite the example of Lebanon/Beirut, with its history of sectarian violence or of the Gulf States who happen to be accidentally blessed with such staggering oil wealth, as models to be emulated. I would also point out that the humiliation associated with the checkpoints is a relatively recent phenomenon occasioned at least in substantial part by the Second Intifada. I don't believe checkpoints were nearly as prevalent during the Oslo period, although I could be wrong on that. As for the "brain drain" you say happened after 67, my understanding was that the Palestinians on the West Bank were initially overjoyed to be liberated from Jordanian rule so I am surprised, although again, not certain. Finally, it is also worth noting that Israeli Arabs living in the little triangle overwhelmingly prefer to remain part of Israel in any peace deal. Mythbuster and others will undoubtedly say that is because they choose to be under Israel's protection, but I believe it is because of economic reasons and because they prefer the rights they enjoy as Israeli citizens to the uncertainty of living under PA rule.
Of course, the occupation has contributed to the sorry state of affairs. But I agree with Brad that it is patronizing not to hold them accountable as well.
June 17, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
As someone who values Brad's contributions here, I must say I found this particular comment only marginally relevant and unhelpful. Yes, there are significant reasons for concern over what the future holds for the Palestinian state. Yes, there are enormous rifts within Palestinian society and polity that make the idea of a peace agreement now, even if one were in the offing, unlikely to say the least. And yes, these are significant concerns for Israel. But Israel will plainly not assent to any peace agreement that does not provide arrangements for its own security. So it seems to me somewhat gratuitous to hold up the violence within Palestinian society as a sort of exemplar of what we should expect.
What I think is more relevant is the fact that the same people who bemoan Netanyahu's stinginess and insistence on conditions that will never be accepted by the Palestinian leadership seem completely unwilling or unable to apply the same standard to the Palestinian leadership. To take the most obvious example (of many), no Palestinian leader has ever budged even a centimeter on their insistence on a full right of return for all 1948 refugees and their descendants, notwithstanding the initiatives of successive Israeli governments to dismantle the vast majority of settlements.
Even committed peace activist David Grossman pointed this out in Haaretz:
"I also observed the Palestinians who responded to the speech, and I thought that they are the most faithful partners to desistance and missed opportunities. Their response could have been much wiser and more prescient than the speech itself; could they not have grasped even the drooping branch Netanyahu offered them, unwillingly, and challenged him to begin negotiations with them immediately, as he proposed at the beginning of his address; negotiations with some chance that the two parties will climb down from the lofty heights of reverberating declarations onto the soil of reality, and perhaps to each party's promised land.
But the Palestinians, trapped like we are in a mechanism of contention and haggling, prefered to speak of the thousand years that would pass before they would agree to his conditions."
Maybe someday MJ will recognize this.
June 17, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
AG - Responding to some of your comments:
1 - From arab people I know in the Triangle (the little town of Kafr Bara)almost the sole reason they prefer to stay under Israeli rule is economic. At this point they can ship their goods and buy materials without any problems. They fear that if they were part of the Palestinian state, they would have no border access to the outside world and would be totally at Israel's mercy, economically.
Relations between Jews and arabs in the triangle have deteriorated dramatically. My guess is that a viable Palestinian state with a standard of living even half of Israel would prove tempting to triangle arabs.
2 - Yes checkpoints are more prevelent now than during Oslo but my point was why the need for humiliation and tactics designed to make life intolerable. What is the excuse for that? Does that improve Israel's security?
3 - The right of return has been part of every negotiation. To say that Palestinians have not budged an inch on this issue is false. Taba solidified the Palestinian position of a somewhat token return. This was also part of the Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative. The Olmert/Livni talks brought up a possible return of 30,000 with compensation for the balance. Even the Arab Peace Initiative talks about a mutually agreed solution to the refugees. It's bogus to suggest that the Palestinians are holding firm to the absolute right of return. It's merely the sole negotiating point they have in their favor and they will not relinquish it until they see the total parameters of the deal.
4 - After 1967 and the absence of Jordanian rule, Palestinians felt liberated because that was the awakening of their own nationalism. Read Gorenberg's book "Accidental Empire" to see how the settlement enterprise developed and all the ruses, lies that went into the idea of permanently disenfranchising the Palestinians. From Sharon's finger strategy to Bibi's autonomy ruse, the idea has always been to put the Palestinians into "reservations". The Palestinians have not been so dumb that they could not read Israel's handwriting of activities.
June 18, 2009 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Statement to MOMENT magazine by leader of Chabad movement which is represented on every major American college campus and treated by Jews as within the mainstream.
The question is about western morality and love thy neighbor:http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-06/200906-Ask_Rabbis.html
"I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).
"The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East. First, the Arabs will stop using children as shields. Second, they will stop taking hostages knowing that we will not be intimidated. Third, with their holy sites destroyed, they will stop believing that G-d is on their side. Result: no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.
"Zero tolerance for stone throwing, for rockets, for kidnapping will mean that the state has achieved sovereignty. Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention."
Rabbi Manis Friedman
Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies
St. Paul, MN
June 17, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you will have difficulty finding anyone, either inside Israel or outside Israel, who gives any credence whatsoever to Netanyahu's reference to a 'Palestinian entity' as implying Likud's abandonment of a 'Greater Israel' that specifically includes ALL LAND west of the Jordan river i.e. from Eilat in the south to Qiryat Shemona in the north.
Israel, Likud, Netanyahu, Olmert and Sharon - all have played for time not realizing that time is against them. Each further year of procrastination, delaying tactics and obfuscation brings with it a measurable dilution of the former uncritical support formerly enjoyed by AIPAC and the Christian Zionist support that is so essential to its existence.
America and Europe recognize the tactics - and increasingly reject them.
June 17, 2009 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink