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What Can Obama Do About Palestine, Meanwhile?
My old friend Danny Rubinstein, who has covered the West Bank pretty much since the occupation began, came over Friday afternoon. He had covered this week's expulsion of Palestinian residents from their disputed home in Sheikh Jarrah. He had just come from conversations with Palestinian journalists in East Jerusalem, and was not in a cheerful frame of mind.
One gets the feeling that things are coming to a head, he says, what with Mahmoud Abbas' announcement that he would not seek reelection, and Netanyahu headed to a Washington whose Congress had just denounced the Goldstone Report. The Israeli government is doing what it can to defend the status quo. But the status quo engenders a disaster, and the Obama administration is understandably distracted.
The question is not whether time is running out on a two-state solution, as if one state, like South Africa, could ever happen here. The real question is whether we are going to prevent the kind of general violence that will turn Israel and Palestine into a Balkans-style conflict, with Jerusalem a kind of Sarajevo, and the Israeli Arab villages of the Little Triangle a kind of Bosnia. Without palpable outside action to move Israel off the status quo, especially from the Obama administration, the streets of the West Bank will blow. But Obama has no desire to pick a fight with any senators just now, not until 60 of them vote to end the inevitable Republican filibuster.
ABBAS, YOU SEE, is not the point. He has been a force for reconciliation, perhaps the best partner Israel could ever have (or so former Labor minister Ephraim Sneh writes in today's Haaretz), but his personal prestige was never very great. That he is threatening to withdraw from politics is a symptom of danger, not a danger in itself. For Abbas has always been a kind of national working hypothesis: that Ramallah's secular bourgeoisie was a natural leadership to bring forth a state, and that its power to create the rule of law, and its prospects in the regional economy, justified patience; that the continuing flow of money from the international community justified having a person in the (albeit diminished) Palestinian Authority that outsiders could trust.
But when ordinary people in the streets of the West Bank start to believe that this leadership cannot be trusted to deliver--that donor money is meant to palliate them during a silent ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and the annexation of their land by settlers--Hamas will appear the only game in town. We seem to be in a race between the vote on healthcare in the Senate and the outbreak of riots around Al-Aqsa.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION cannot just sit on its hands, and seems to know what it needs to do in the long run. But what exactly can it do in the short-run to reassure Palestinians without inciting a public backlash among senators eager to prove their "friendship" to Israel. The dispute over a "settlements freeze" has proven a dead end, since everybody (including leaders of the PA) have been working on the assumption that at least some of the citified settlements will be annexed to Israel; that Palestine would ultimately be compensated with a land swap. Neither could the Obama administration endorse the Goldstone Report, which Palestinians justifiably regard as a touchstone of others' empathy for them, without laying itself open to charges that it is cavalier about missiles falling on Israel.
Somehow, then, the administration has to signal that it is not only serious about pursuing a Palestinian state but that it has a pretty clear understanding of what that state would look like, where it's borders will be, and so forth--and that it is not simply a cheerleader for negotiations that will, under present circumstances, prove fruitless. But how do you buy time without appearing to endorse the status quo. How do you signal the outlines of the state without presenting the whole plan for a state?
ALL OF WHICH brings me back to Rubinstein. Perhaps the most depressing thing he told me confirms apprehensions I wrote about in Harper's last month, that while the Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is trying to build out the foundations of a Palestinian state--say, through massive construction projects in and around Ramallah--he is being thwarted in all kinds of ways by the occupation authorities and the IDF. Almost no developments in Area A (the cores of Palestinian cities), for example, can fail to encroach on Areas B and C where the IDF controls the roads and airspace--more than 60% of the West Bank. "He is trying to break ground on the Al-Ersal project and he is suddenly up against a road the settlers use only for themselves in Area C. This is so called 'state land,' the Israeli government has taken from Jordan and calls its own."
But here, precisely, is an opportunity for the American government, is it not? Suppose the Obama administration were to commit, say, $50 million to this project and use its public influence to seek its construction. If the Israeli government gets in the way, then it is obstructing a joint Palestinian-American project. If the question comes up whether parts of Area B or C around the project are ultimately going to be part of the Palestinian state, then the American administration can signal--that is, in advance of any negotiation--that it is siding with the Palestine authority over the interests of the settlers.
The point is, we have to move away from statements of principle to manifest demonstrations of intention. America has to become Palestine's partner not only in training police, but in expanding the foundations of commerce and statehood. Just as important, the Obama administration needs to prove that, unlike its predecessor, it will not become an inadvertent tool of the settlers.
And if while it's focussed on its domestic priorities the administration can't avoid a fight with AIPAC's favorite politicians, let it be over something the vast majority of Israelis, let alone Americans, would support. I mean the peaceful development of Palestinian civil society in parts of the West Bank where cities are growing and, border or no border, settlers have crossed all bounds.
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Never thought I'd say this
But TOM FREIDMAN GETS IT
There I said it
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08friedman.html?hpWe have better things to do with our billions
November 8, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You left off his last lone, with which I agree, and have argued here many time:
"...we should put a detailed U.S. plan for a two-state solution, with borders, on the table. Let’s fight about something big.
November 8, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
John, I think you misread Friedman. He doesn't mean we should cut off Israel and the Palestinians, he means we should cut off the "peace making." Which, of course, means throwing the Palestinians under the bus...as the US would still keep funding Israel.
Now if Friedman were to call for suspending all financial, military, and diplomatic aid to both sides, that would be different.
And that will never happen.
November 8, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's why I put "subsidize" in bold
Even if he'd left off the last paragraph, I'd have quoted because he has a point. We don't do either side any good by going through these idle gymnastics and God knows we do have more important matters to deal with (and spend money on)
November 8, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're serious you want to cut off subsidies to Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Israel. In sum, to Israel and ALL its enemies.
It's easy to figure out what would happen; ALL the Arab states would collapse and Israel would drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza and take whatever else it wanted in the Middle East IF none of the other big powers intervened...which of course they would do.
Is that all ok with you?
November 8, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah right
They have SO much to do with the mess in Israel
Glenn Greenwald gets it
202-456-1414
Ask for Barack
November 8, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/08/israel/index.html
November 8, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
They have everything to do with the current mess. Unfortunately, you're idea of "history" is what happened on Monday night football.
November 8, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't need lectures on history any more than Colindale does or anyone else here for that matter
November 8, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
America if not first then certainly before Judea and Samaria
Get it
I think Friedman has just reframed this into a REAL solution
For the US
November 8, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
As for your questions..talk to a Palestinian
They believe just that - Israel will try to drive them out..that it has been Israel's objective since before there WAS an Israel and she will ask you "what has the peace process done for us?"
And you will have to answer NOTHING
It simply is not in the national interest of the US to be involved in the mess that is Israel
The Palestinian you query will tell you that the Israelis want to drive them into the Jordanian desert to die....
How long do you think Israel will last if the US refused to provide cover for their crimes?
November 8, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of a sudden Spider's concerned about the plight of the Palestinians!
Ain't that convenient
Looks like Friedman really IS on to something
Never thought I'd say it but I did
And there's your confirmation
I'll have to start reading him again
November 8, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...as if one state, like South Africa, could ever happen here."
It will.
November 8, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, no, it won't. But there will be blood and civil war and ethnic cleansing. There is more than one historical analogy, it seems. Anyway, you might consider more than one.
November 8, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
But ceasing cooperation with the Occupation is now a moral necessity. The Palestinians as the weaker party really have no other sane choice than just to refuse to enforce the occupation. That means, (1) send General Dayton home; (2) start using Palestinian militias to defend Palestinian farmers and olive groves; (3) ask the Arab States to not only cease all contact with Israel, but adopt "Sullivan principles" for all Western businesses that do business with the IDF. For example, Arabs should pass an Arab League ban on all business with Catapillar while it continues to build civilian-murdering bulldoziers. They could start surcharging Exxon on all contracts until Exxon ends it contract to supply oil to Israel--or publically reject an Exxon bid in light of its Israeli contracts (which, I believe are actually with the US government).
The list is endless.
When the Israeli business class realizes that their future is imperiled, they will pressure Israel's government to get serious about the Two State Solution.
November 8, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The following was written in 2003, by a Palestinian. Its objective validity was as clear then as now, though more people now accept the obvious. That scares you, and it damn well should
Stop lying to yourself about your own liberalism. Thats the first step.November 8, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Stop lying to yourself about your own liberalism."
Exactly!
Ethnic nationalism is not a liberal notion. Neither is ethnocratic government that places one ethnic group within a multiethnic population in a privileged position. Yet, ad nauseum on TPMCafe, we are treated to the absurd and increasingly embarrassing spectacle of Jewish commentators who like to think of themselves as liberals condemning the ugly--but also inevitable--consequences of ethnic nationalism while all the time clinging in some way to the belief that Israel either should not or cannot change its ethnocentric ways. If just half of this mental energy and verbal surfeit were devoted to building and promoting the idea of a Hebrew-Arab Republic that merges the cultures of these two fatefully intertwined peoples--Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs--into a common polity some progress might be made. But instead we have this endless and pointless hand-wringing about the brutal consequences of ethnocratic government without any honest recognition that the primary reason real liberals consistently and unambiguously oppose ethnocracy is because ethnocracy inevitably leads to those very same brutal consequences. We have much condemnation of the bitter fruit of ethnocentrism on TPMCafe--but also much love of the poisonous root and branch that bears that fruit.
November 9, 2009 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
That one was for Avishai, obviously.
November 8, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyway, you might consider more than one.
And so might you if you really wanted to . . .
November 8, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question is not whether time is running out on a two-state solution, as if one state, like South Africa, could ever happen here.
Why not? Lack of will, I think. And not among Arabs.
November 8, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has.
not only that, but it is worse
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126602.html
the established israeli political establishment continues unabated to implement its prime directive to "remove all arabs and take their place", as the israeli george washington, ben gurion, advocated.
November 8, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was no such prime directive. Ben Gurion said a lot of things
http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2006/10/ben-gurions-notorious-quotes-their.html
Compare them with the record of the Arab George Washinton
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6174&Itemid=100
No doubt you support him?
November 8, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
did ben gurion say it or not? isn't the curent israeli policy one of ethnic cleansing or not?
why is spider like a top? he is always spinning.
November 8, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
How would you know whether I'm spinning or not? You're completely blind and dumb as a post.
November 8, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
hasn't it been, and is it not now, that israel has an ethnic cleansing policy?
answer that, and we will see you spin?
November 8, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you're furious with Israelis (Jews) - which seems to be pretty much all the time - do you dream of being a concentration guard? Do you wear a uniform? Do you inflict punishment? Do you get off?
November 8, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paging Godwin. Spider on line 1.
November 8, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
See my last post (below). The quotes come from the links I posted.
Before I'm banned, which I assume will happen soon, consider this;
David Mackay has read David Goodstein. I suspect the grounds for their disagreement are esthetic; MacKay is willing to tolerate a much higher percentage of land covered by windmills. In his proposed solution for Great Britain wind farms cover an area equal to that of Wales.
I haven't read Jacobson yet but, unless he can improve on the energy per acre recovered, nothing will change.
November 8, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is the 2nd time in this thread that your mind has brought up nazi imagery. in this last post your mind has associated that imagery with sadism and sex.
you have still not answered the question. instead, you spew forth squid ink.
discussion closed!
November 8, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the point where people like Bernard come to realize that they have to commit to an all-out struggle to persuade, cajole, nudge, or shame a huge number of American Jews into demanding an end to AIPAC, and its endless idiocies, will be the point when America's Congress realizes that sympathy for Israel and support of Jewish voters does NOT in fact require endless betrayal of common sense, and kissing the posterior of the Israeli lunatic fringe, and that will be the point when significant progress MIGHT begin towards a two-state solution. Until then, pie-in-the-sky 'construction projects (which do WHAT exactly for the long-term future of the Palestinians?) for peace' and other such distractions will leave the mire as mire. Friedman meanwhile is only blowing off steam.
November 8, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
As Mythbuster says: 'ceasing cooperation with the Occupation is now a moral necessity'.
But not only a moral necessity. The occupation is a festering wound that infects the entire Middle East, and beyond. Furthermore, it is unsustainable. It may have lasted for over fifty years and may last another one or two - but it is essentially an untenable position.
The only way that the Israeli state could survive as an entity would be for it to ethnically-cleanse every Arab and Muslim from all the land west of the Jordan. i.e. the undeclared manifesto of the Likud Party. But that Israeli hope is a dead duck.
So we are left with an imposed instability, imposed by the US, that will eventually end in a horrific disaster.
For there are too many people around - avid for money, political power and influence, who have little if any concern for the generations that will follow. Generations who will reap the whirlwind of the seeds of atrocity that they have sown in the M E.
No political edifice will stand for long that is founded on the misery and oppression of another people. That is what history teaches us. But we are slow to learn.
November 8, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is what history teaches us
What the fuck are you talking about? Whoever taught you history should be fired. Immediately.
November 8, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't taught history - I teach history.
November 8, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The first part is obvious, the second part is criminal.
November 8, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your history may be perfectly sound (hard to tell) but your assumption that the future possibilities are limited to a single state solution is certainly dubious. No one in fact can predict the future, and historians are no less incapable of doing so than others. At any rate, however, one of the few crystal clear things from the last 60 years in Mideast is that the two-state solution has never been tried in any half-way credible or serious way.
November 9, 2009 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
There has never been a strong desire by either of the two parties to implement a two-state solution. The failure of the two-state solution, however, should not be attributed merely to a failure of will. The practical obstacles to a two-state solution are immense, and whenever the details of any particular two-state solution are explored, the untenability of the solution becomes evident and whatever desire for such a solution existed prior to the exploration immediately evaporates. The reason there is no will is because there is no way.
November 10, 2009 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep trying to shunt them off into their own state and prove to the world that segregation is the desired outcome. Why do you think this is good for the Jewish people?
November 8, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
When your enemy says this
Any reasonable person would say this
but a really, really, really dumb progressive thinks that a high quality jelly will solve all problems.
November 8, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
a phony muslim says: Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God.
a phony jew says: We must expel the Arabs and take their places.
a phony christian says: We must get the Jews and Arabs into Armageddon.
spider sees the phony muslim and defends the phony jew. i'm leaving out the phony christians as i don't know his views. to me, all three are the problem.
November 8, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
A phoney human being says
and then replies to a post not addressed to her.
November 8, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that this notion, which is taken more or less as a given by critics of Israel, needs some more scrutiny.
Playing devil's advocate for a bit, I have to ask the question whether it is necessarily the case that the status quo is a disaster for Israel. I would argue that the status quo is a much greater problem for the Palestinians, who will likely be ever further radicalized if the status quo continues. But for Israel? What is the disaster which awaits?
People often bring up the idea that Jews will at some point soon be a minority of the inhabitants who live between the river and the sea. Israelis thus need to choose between being a Jewish state and being a democracy etc. But this is a highly abstract notion. Nothing concrete will change at the moment when Jews become a minority.
Even the demonization of Israel around the world, while terribly unfair and unfortunate, has not appreciably affected the lives of most Israelis. Israelis still travel abroad, do business, participate in international institutions and otherwise get on with life much as they've done for the last 60 years. It is true that at the height of the mid-1990s optimism about Israeli-Palestinian peace, relations with Europe noticeably warmed. But how much difference did that actually make?
I think it is this sort of thinking that is quite prevalent in Israel. As much as people may whine about the situation, Israeli lives are for the most part comfortable. They also know that peace is not something that is just there for the taking. Even if Israel made every concession being asked of it, true peace would still be elusive.
There are two things which enable this complacency, if it can be called that. First, the inviolability of the American alliance. The aid money is nice, but it isn't really that crucial to enable Israel to do what it needs to do. Access to American technology is a bigger deal, but even that is not a life-or-death issue. American diplomatic protection of Israel is even more important. But the really important thing is the implicit guarantee that the US will defend Israel if it ever were in real mortal danger. If that were to go away or be repudiated, then minds in Israel would be concentrated indeed.
But even more important in my opinion is the stability, for now, of Egypt. The neutralization of the Egyptian threat after the Camp David Accords is the greatest single factor that has enabled Israel to act the way it wants with respect to settlements. If Egypt were to become seriously unstable, or if there were an Islamist coup, for example, the shit would hit the fan in Israel. To put it bluntly, if there were a need to shift military resources to defend against a renewed Egyptian threat, there would have to be a serious re-think among the IDF brass about the continued viability of spending so much defending the West Bank settlers. In this sense, the West Bank deployments are a luxury that Israel can afford for now - until it needs to actually fight a major war again.
Chances are that Egypt will remain stable for the time being, and that the US alliance will also remain stable, which is why I think it is a fool's game to predict anything much changing on the peace front, at least as it related to Israel's calculations.
November 8, 2009 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rabin would certainly have disagreed with this viewpoint, as did the committee that awarded him the Nobel Prize. Apparently your opinion is that Rabin's murderers were simply anticipating the inevitable failure of land for peace in some places based on the long-term success of it in other places.
This argument suits Al Qqsa and Islamic Jihad even better than it does the settler movement, however. The settlers do not argue that the justification for their violence, immorality, intransigence, and fearmongering in OPPOSITION to land-for-peace in the West Bank depend on SUPPORT for land-for-peace in the Sinai. But, a Palestinian hard-liner who wants maximum inciting of violence and provoking of brutal retaliation from Israel has now a great argument: If they can provoke enough Israeli massacres of their children, Egpyt will eventually actively join their mad terrorist struggle. Indeed there is hardly any other rational reason for last year's inherently immoral rocket attacks from Gaza except provocation.
November 9, 2009 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rabin's calculations were much more related to the Iranian threat than anything else. His view was that the Palestinian issue was a distraction from what he saw was the real threat to Israel coming from Iran. In that sense, his logic was the same as mine, essentially arguing that Israel had bigger fish to fry than the Palestinians. Substitute Iran for Egypt and it's essentially the same argument I'm making. That is, that defending the West Bank settlements is a luxury that the IDF can ill afford. I'm just arguing that Israel hasn't got there yet given the apparently sacrosanct notion that Israel's southern border is stable and will remain so. If that calculation were to change, then there would be significant changes in Israel's strategic priorities.
November 9, 2009 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wikipedia has a long article on Rabin. "Iran" does not appear anywhere in it. Wikipedia is far from immune to boneheaded lopsidedness, but at least this article unlike many on Israel and Palestine, has no "disputed" warning flags plastered on it.
I thus have no idea what you are talking about here:
"His view was that the Palestinian issue was a distraction from what he saw was the real threat to Israel coming from Iran."
Do you?
Looking forward to your explanations of how you
are so much wiser than Wikipedia.
November 9, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
sorry that you don't like reality, but reality is not an "argument." Israel indeed can live with the status quo and it is clear that this is the general preference of both the leadership and public opinion.
On the margins, BDS, especially its successes in Europe, is beginning to make those Israelis who are most exposed, academics and global businessmen, uncomfortable. You can see it in the op-eds and especially in The Marker, Haaretz' business journal. The establishment cannot afford alienating these important constituencies beyond a certain point. That is why defeating BDS is one of the most important goals of Israel's foreign policy, and they can thank TPM's "Israel's bashers" like Avishai and Rosenberg to support the occupation where it really matters.
Egypt is a big factor in that. in the late seventies, at the height of the arms race between Israel and Egypt, Israel was in free fall economic collapse with a military budget consuming 35% of GDP! Peace with Egypt saved Israel and allowed it a free hand in ratcheting up the occupation.
Egypt fared less well. It is one of the most wretched countries in the world. Poverty got worse, the military regime that thrives with US help is ever more entrenched. It will fall eventually. There are only two questions. When? And how much lower can the liberals who cheer this government that makes chaouchesku smell like roses sink?
November 9, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
It will fall eventually. When?
Right. Soon. Probably when its President dies and a weaker man tries to fill his shoes.
Most likely an Islamist will take over. That will be very bad for the Copts. So there will be ethnic cleansing and probably civil war, starvation, devastation. Classically, this is when nations are prone to engage in foreign adventures if they have the means and the will. Egypt has neither.
What then? Pressure on Saudi Arabia will certainly increase. Throughout the Muslim world revolution will be in the air. That's as far as I can see. Perhaps you can do better.
November 9, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they can provoke enough Israeli massacres of their children, Egpyt will eventually actively join their mad terrorist struggle. Indeed there is hardly any other rational reason for last year's inherently immoral rocket attacks from Gaza except provocation.
I happen to agree with you.
But on another thread AnnaA made the same argument and posters screamed at her, insulted her, demanded impossible proofs, refused to believe.
On this thread, when you make the argument, there's not a word of condemnation. That kind of thing happens often around here. Think about it.
November 9, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hysterics like MJ claim the status quo is a disaster for Israel. Clear-thinking critics of Israel understand that the status quo is highly beneficial to Israel, as an endless "peace process" aimed at implementing a long impossible two-state solution gives Israel a convenient way to claim it seeks a fair resolution to the conflict while providing it abundant time to expand its territory through settlement and further marginalize the Palestinian population and make their continued existence within Israeli-controlled lands increasingly untenable. Israel's primary goal is to maintain its status as a Jewish ethnocracy. The additional territory it annexes through settlement is important to that goal in giving it additional land for an expanding Jewish population and in providing a greater defensive buffer against its neighbors. The removal and marginalization of Arabs is even more important to Israel, as this is and always has been the sine qua non for the creation and preservation of a Jewish ethnocracy. You simply cannot have a Jewish state when a large percentage of the population is Arab. This obvious fact makes some process of ethnic cleansing essential to Israel's existence as a Jewish state. The status quo seems designed to give Israel a way to "plausibly deny" that it intends ethnic cleansing and maintain the illusion that it seeks peace and a fair solution with the Palestinians while all the while allowing Israel to slowly wear down the Palestinians until, as Israel hopes, they give up and leave.
While the status quo does create some inconvenience for Israel (there's the cost of the occupation and the threat of terrorist attacks), as Brad notes the cost is affordable and the security threat less grave and more tolerable than Israel and its supporters like to pretend. Further, the status quo seems ideally suited to Israel's long-term goal of maximizing its land and minimizing its Arab population while protecting its position in the international community by maintaining an illusion of seeking peace and not practicing ethnic cleansing.
Hysterics like MJ, of course, seem at once to be fools--who deceive themselves into believing that it is somehow in Israel's interest to change the status quo--and also tools who actually help Israel maintain the pernicious status quo by continually advocating for the illusory two-state solution and all the fruitless peace processes that go along with that all-too-seductive and, for Israel, effective chimera. It really would be a comical farce if it weren't so tragic for the 4 or 5 million people who suffer daily because of the status quo.
November 10, 2009 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
A fine analysis. The second such that I've read by you.
What's lacking is context. The surrounding Muslim world consists of even more extreme ethnocracies and theocracies....and Jews lived for 2000 years in such societies and have had enough of it. It's time for a role reversal. Of course it would be better if religion and tribalism were eliminated but that will not happen any time soon.
...and MJ is far worse than simply hysterical.
November 10, 2009 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spider, if for the sake of argument we agree that the creation of a Jewish ethnocracy violates the rights of the Palestinians, an argument can still be made that the Jews' creation of such an ethnocracy is acceptable if it is also true that without such an ethnocracy the Jews would be slaughtered. Given the choice between allowing the slaughter of everyone in your ethnic group (including, of course, your children and most of the people you love the most) and violating the human rights of some other group of people, the best choice (morally, even) is probably to violate the rights of the other group.
This argument--which, I think, is the argument you are making--is compelling and certainly has strong support in Jewish history. The argument, however, requires the assumption that the anti-Semitism observed in the past cannot be eradicated now or in the future. Such an assumption seems to presume some inherent predisposition among non-Jews to dislike Jews and/or some special characteristic inherent among Jews which makes them more susceptible to hate than other groups. Since I believe that all people are basically alike, I have trouble accepting such a thesis. Whatever tension there has been between Jews and non-Jews is a historical artifact (not anything essential) and therefore can be eradicated by a concerted effort to remove the sense of difference between the groups. Unfortunately, the creation of a special Jewish state emphasizes differences and perpetuates the appearance of a permanent and essential divide between Jews and everyone else. I don't think this is healthy and it is one reason I support a single-state solution. I think a single state--if successful--would prove to the world that there is no essential difference between Jews and Arabs (or other goyim) and therefore go a long way toward eradicating the divisions that spawn anti-Semitism. Israel's existence as a Jewish state implies that Jews are different. Israel's existence as a multicultural state including Jews, Arabs, and others, would go a long way to breaking barriers and therefore help "normalize" the position of the Jewish nation ("goy") among the other nations ("goyim"). Right now, everything about Israel implies Jewish exceptionalism, including the argument that Israel has a right (not typically granted to other nations) to violate the rights of its Arab population because the Jews are under a special threat different from the ordinary threats all other people are under.
All this said, it is of course quite reasonable for Jews--based on history--not to want to take the risk of trying a single state. However, as long as Israel remains what it is, it will have to be an armed fortress, a Jewish ghetto (even if a prosperous one) in the midst of hostile Arab neighbors. This doesn't seem like a promising future for Israel to me, but maybe the sense of threat among Jews is so great that even this is more assuring than the alternatives.
November 11, 2009 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for a thoughtful reply. I'd like to respond in kind but I'm rushed now and may not get back to you for awhile.
You focus too much on Jews and too narrowly on their experience with Arabs.
Many, many other groups are ethnocentric and have very bad experiences with their neighbors; the Armenians have excellent reasons for not wishing to live under Turkish rule, ditto Uighurs, Tibetans, and Vietnamese in their relationships with the Han. And so on. The list is very long.
From another point of view, tolerant nations are not equally tolerant towards all groups. French, Germans, Japanese (even considering their prior history), Jews, Catholics all are very grateful to America for allowing them opportunity and full participation in society. Blacks and native Americans are less than thrilled.
At the moment Arab societies suck. Not just in their relationships with all their neighbors and minorities - Israelis, Kurds, Copts, Iranians, Indians (if you stretch the point) - but internally. There's a fine article about their problems in Al Ahram (I linked to it in another thread but don't have time to find it now).
Until all that changes they can go to Hell. That's how the Israelis feel, and I completely support them. For me, the progressive point of view is incoherent and Jewish progressives like Rosenberg are the worst of cowardly traitors.
November 11, 2009 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spider, in your earlier post, you said:
"The surrounding Muslim world consists of even more extreme ethnocracies and theocracies....and Jews lived for 2000 years in such societies and have had enough of it. "
The interesting thing, of course, is that most Jews today are Ashkenazi, which means the ancestors of most Jews spent the last 2000 years (or so) in Christian countries, not Muslim. Whether those Christian countries were extreme ethnocracies or theocracies is maybe debatable, but whatever they were, they were not particularly tolerant of or kind to Jews. For most of the past 1300 or 1400 years since Islam arose, Muslim societies have been considerably friendlier to Jews than have Christian societies. This is not to say that Jews were treated as equals by Muslims, but Jews were not persecuted to nearly the same extent by Muslims as they were by Christians. The intensified dislike of Jews now exhibited in the Muslim world is a recent phenomenon that has arisen primarily as reaction to Zionism. To fully understand the Muslim reaction to Zionism, one must recognize that Zionism isn't merely a Jewish phenomenon, but also a European one. Over many centuries, there has been a slow but steady shift in the balance of power from the Middle East to Europe, which reached its climax with British colonialism after the fall of the Ottomans. The creation of a Jewish state on land owned and populated mostly by Muslims was maybe the last and greatest insult the British colonialists could hurl at the Muslim world. It showed that even the group of Europeans most despised by the majority of Europeans--the Jews--were more important in the eyes of Europe than the Muslims. With the creation of Israel, the rights of Jews--so disregarded in Europe itself--were placed by the Europeans above the rights of Muslims. The creation of Israel, therefore, was and continues to be symbolic to Muslims of the low regard in which Europe holds them. While bigotry directed at Jews certainly plays into the Muslim dislike of Israel, Europe's disrespect for Muslims demonstrated by Europe's placement of Jewish rights and interests above Muslim rights and interests is at least an equal factor in stoking Muslim hatred and resentment towards Israel.
(Sorry, rushed at the end, got to go to work!)
November 12, 2009 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make a few mistakes;
The Jewish presence in Palestine was large until the coming of the Muslims, and didn't become large in Europe until a thousand years ago.
The rise of modern anti-semitism in the Muslim world paralleled that in the Christian world, and was probably due to increased race consciousness and the creation of nation states along ethnic lines. See, for example, the Damascus pogrom of 1840.
Britain didn't create Zionism, or put the interests of Jews over that of Muslims. During WWI it made promises to both Jews and Arabs because it needed all the allies it could get. During the mandate period one can argue that it sided with the Arabs since it tried to stop all Jewish immigration from Europe.
Arab countries evicted a million Jews between 1940 and 1970, most of whom settled in Israel. So there is a very sizeable population on Mizrahim and Sephardim.
But none of them are of real importance.
Your main thesis is correct; Arabs feel utterly humiliated by repeated defeats at the hands of the despised Jews (they've spoken of it openly over the years). Its one thing for the greatest warrior nation of former times - the Turks - to be conquered by their modern successors - the British....and quite another to be dispossessed by a handful of people with no martial history at all.
That why the Palestinians have been so badly treated by their Arab brethren, why this conflict is so intractable, why it will be settled on the battlefield...and only on the battlefield.
November 12, 2009 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spider, even the Damascus incident you mention was largely the result of European and Christian influence. The Muslim populace was responsible for much of the violence against Jews, but the original accusation against the Jews (that they had slaughtered a Catholic priest and his Muslim servant and drank the blood for Passover) came from the Catholic priests living in Syria under French protection. This was an example of European Christians exporting their anti-Semitic notions to a Muslim population which considered all non-Muslims (including Jews) inferior, but which was still relatively tolerant toward both Jews and Christians. My main point is not that Muslims are humiliated and hateful, but that the current anti-Semitism (and/or vehement anti-Israeli sentiment) observed in the Middle East arises as much from the relationship between Muslim societies and European Christian societies as it does from any inherent hatred of Jews within the Muslim world.
November 13, 2009 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard Lewis agrees with you;
http://www.meforum.org/396/muslim-anti-semitism
But I and many other don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew
November 14, 2009 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's true that - in general - Muslim anti-semitism was much less violent and virulent than its Christian counterpart, but, over the years, the intensity of both has varied with circumstance and sect.
In any case Muslim culture has not prepared Arabs for entry into the modern world, a world in which they are at the bottom of the social scale. One in which Jews outperform them by any measure and have not just conquered them in the way the Turks and British did, but physically dispossessed them. As a result they've become the worst anti-semites since the Nazis
http://www.meforum.org/685/anti-semitism-revisited
Cleary, no peace is possible between them and the Jews until their attitudes change. Further, since the Jews have vowed "never again" its easy to see a situation arising which results in mutual annihilation.
November 14, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Neither could the Obama administration endorse the Goldstone Report, which Palestinians justifiably regard as a touchstone of others' empathy for them, without laying itself open to charges that it is cavalier about missiles falling on Israel.
That's false. The Goldstone report didn't challenge Israel's right to use military operations to defend itself against attacks. It only cited a sizable list of Israeli violations of international humanitarian law that took place in the conduct of those military operations.
November 9, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Goldstone report addresses the disproportionate force used by Israel and loss of the lives of women and children!
It also addresses the Palestinian rockets use!
If Israel is to be proved innocent once and for all --it can not try to cover up what happened but be upfront..State your case on the merits...
If you stand in the gap and look across the wall--the devastation is obvious...It is the leaders not the people!
November 9, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
@Brad
That analysis whilst not inaccurate is IMHO overly simplistic. It ignores the inevitability of further wars with Hezbollah and Iran and/or other Iranian proxies, plus the dangerous instability in Gaza as a result of Israel's foolish and arrogant repression of the populace.
A significant political change in Egypt would undoubtedly alter the status quo in the ME but there are many other threats that can crystallize earlier.
Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities are now within range of their enemies and will become increasingly so with time. Arguably, Israel is potentially now the most dangerous place on earth for any Jew (or anyone else). That is why an ever increasing number of Israelis choose to now live in London, NY and all points west of Haifa.
In the end, Israel will not (as you say) cease to exist because of military failure, it will eventually disintegrate because politically and economically, it is inherently unstable. And crucially, it is non self-sustaining being dependent not only on the US but on various essential, external support.
November 9, 2009 2:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that countering the threat from Hamas or Hezbollah have not required major re-thinks about the fundamental strategic posture of the IDF. Israel is able to "afford" both the massive deployments in the West Bank AND do things like the Gaza incursion simultaneously. Gaza and Lebanon are just not that expensive in terms of resources. But defending against a possible invasion would be an entirely different situation.
As for the idea that Israel is so dangerous for Jews, my only comment is: You wish! There has always been emigration from Israel and the reasons tend towards more prosaic issues, like corruption and opportunity. Security, while not unimportant certainly, tends not to be the main reason people leave, although obviously that shifts as the situation changes.
As much as you might wish it to be so, Israel is in no danger of ceasing to exist, for military, demographic, political or any other reason.
November 9, 2009 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
You could be right! However, 60 years is a very short time on which to be so emphatic as to the future. However, it's an opinion! :) I prefer to be more pragmatic, and using history and science as markers tend to the view that instability is never sustainable for long - measured either in minutes, years or even decades - for it has to be constantly reinforced with scarce resources. Of course, provided the resources are available, then the status quo remains. But it's expensive in all terms and never guaranteed. One day, whatever my opinion is, or yours, the supply of those resources will be incomplete or insufficient due to all manner of political and economic changes. Then the unstable edifice will just fall over and the land will return to the status quo ante.
November 9, 2009 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your error is in calling Israel unstable. On the contrary, it is eminently stable.
November 9, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Never thought I'd agree with a troll.
When your enemy says this
Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God
Any reasonable person would say this
We must expel the Arabs and take their places
but a really, really, really dumb progressive thinks that a high quality jelly will solve all problems.
Take that as a fair representation of Israeli policy and you get where we are now, with Palestine Occupied, natives imprisoned, water 'reallocated' to Israeli settlements ( many built by Canadian contractors ), olive groves bulldozed, Palestinian villages and wells likewise.
Don't kid yourself. The U.S. has supported this activity to the tune of $30 Bn annually for years. A pattern of this duration transcending parties and presidents should be regarded as overriding policy.
Anyone who doesn't wonder about Sibel Edmonds' revelations - mostly ignored - and likely doesn't even know about the suppressed history of the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty ( which took place quite some time ago ) won't understand that this 'discussion' is about as important as fleas quarreling over ownership of their dog.
It's owned by the Bank.
November 9, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
BTW Spider
I called you a Troll specifically because you pretend to accurately reflect the views of those with whom you disagree and then 'rebut' those false 'arguments'.
I'm perfectly aware of the nature of False Logic and Poisoning the Well/Strawman argumentation. Obviously, reading this thread, I'd have to conclude that I am not alone.
And the business about the threat to Israel is classic fearmongering designed to deflect criticism of immoral acts.
Somehow the balance of power between prisoners in their own land and those armed with conventional forces plus atomics does not reflect proportionate potentials.
November 9, 2009 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ben Gurion's comments were first mentioned on this thread by Blue Pearl. He made them just before or just after Israel attained statehood, when the balance of power was radically different.
In 1973 Israel came close to losing a conventional war and resorting to atomic weapons. Geography and demographics then and now are truer measures of its precarious position than a description of the quality and quantity of its weapons.
Your problem is not a logical one. Its deeper than that; you simply cannot face being fundamentally wrong and thus cannot look at evidence and arguments with an open mind.
November 9, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'm pretty fed up with this issue. Why so much money time and effort for such a small region of questionable strategic importance? Maybe we should just impose a fix and leave it at that?
November 9, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe we should just impose a fix and leave it at that?
What fix and how are you going to do it? If it was easy - or even possible - it would have been done long ago.
There are two proposed "solutions" - binational single state and two state. Neither is viable because of the goals, attitudes and cultures of the combatants. A hundred years ago Zhabotinsky concluded that those attitudes would not change voluntarily. Over the years Ben Gurion, Benny Morris and Yaacov Lecovick have - most reluctantly - come to the same conclusion. On the Muslim side its the same (actually, they have hardly made any attempt to do so).
"Progressives" on this thread and this site want to impose a solution on Israel which weakens it and ultimately destroys it...but they don't have the courage to say so openly, not realizing that their reluctance fools no one; they're dead in Israel and impotent in the United States. But even if they weren't Israel is too strong to be forced. If they have 500 atomic bombs they can destroy civilization. Even if it's only 200 they can do immense damage.
Nor can we forget the "fix" and just leave. The great powers still have too much need of the region. Our place would soon be taken by others, to our detriment.
November 9, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just to forestall posters who might see a contradiction between my claims that geography and demographics render Israel vulnerable and the one I made now about its strength. Let's be clear - atomic weapons are not a solution, they are a Final Solution.
November 9, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whatevs. Israel is dependent on aid from the US taxpayer, it's not the other way around. And the mere idea of Israel using nuclear weapons to destroy the world is just weird.
November 9, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel is much stronger than you think. It lived without American aid from 1948 to 1967, when it was much weaker.
You want to cut off aid to Israel but not its enemies? You don't have the votes for that and you never will.
But the failure of the U.S. economy may force a reduction in foreign aid...to everyone. The Arab states will then collapse, leaving Israel free to do what it wishes...barring foreign intervention...which is unpredictable.
I'm sorry you're tired. Why don't you take a long nap?
November 9, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel is nothing but a client state, it's about time it learned its place.
November 9, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are two proposed "solutions" - binational single state and two state. Neither is viable because of the goals, attitudes and cultures of the combatants.
please do tell what solution you propose if you reject both the two state or the binational state. the only other alternative is entrenchment of the current apartheid solution.
November 9, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, let's be clear that its not about me. I didn't reject or accept any solutions. I don't have that power. Nor do I have the power to propose anything with any hope of getting anyone in power to listen. I'm a bystander hoping to influence a lot of other bystanders. Nothing more.
I don't think either of the two solutions now on the table can possibly work. So I think the conflict will be settled on the battlefield...and it will be a very, very long conflict. I cannot foresee its end.
What I can see is the settlers continuing to expand their position - who going to stop them? - so that within a few years nobody will be even thinking about a Palestinian state. I can't see beyond that.
November 9, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong again, Spider. Starving Israel for forced supplies of ever advanced munitions may ignore their ever increasing export of weapons themselves - but the need to feed the fire should be over. It says volumes that Iran and North Korea tried to work within the NPT and received broken treaties and sanctions for their pains, while wild card Israel receives largesse exceeding that for the continent of Africa.
The phenomenon of a country wallowing in a Debt Crisis continuing such doesn't seem to attract the notice of those who wonder why a 'system' denying healthcare to many citizens continues to bilk the public...just wait till you see the results of the latest sham...but Israel has enough on the go to be a much harder nut for the U.S. to crack even if it had the will to do so.
There's a significant lack if I ever saw one.
November 9, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't ask what Obama can do for Palestinians. Ask what Palestinians can do for Obama.
He's so nice, and presentable, and smart, and I don't feel that they have done enough for him.
November 9, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your article clarifies what Lieberman wants as he threatens to filibuster health care reform: he wants a guarantee Obama will ditch any intervention in Israeli ethnic cleansing.
Ugly times.
November 9, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
@spider
'The Arab states will then collapse, leaving Israel free to do what it wishes..'
Truth time. Please expand your argument, quoting facts.
Which Arab states, specifically, will collapse and why? Then what action will Israel (hypothetically) take, in your view?
November 9, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon certainly. Saudi Arabia and Syria possibly.
I can't say what Israel will do. It will depend on what the collapse brings. Certainly Israel will do everything it can to gain permanent control of the West Bank and Gaza, implementing population transfer to the full extent of its power.
If Saudi Arabia collapses, we will be entering a new world. One of the principal reasons for our conquest of Iraq was to establish bases which would allow us to gain control of the Saudi oilfields as soon as possible after the collapse. How should I - or anyone else - know what will then happen?
November 9, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
spiderman spins: Ben Gurion's comments were first mentioned on this thread by Blue Pearl. He made them just before or just after Israel attained statehood, when the balance of power was radically different.
i would agree with you if there were no ethnic cleansing in israel right now. arabs are being removed and jews are taking their place. example is east jerusalem. you make it sound like this policiy is some quaint ancient practice that israel has given up not unlike that quaint practice of burning of witches that is no longer practiced.
November 9, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ben Gurion made the comments when he did regardless of whether or not you agree with me.
Attitudes, goals, and cultures have not changed. In fact, the conflict has become more brutal. I've already made that clear in other posts and other threads.
November 9, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
no answer! what a surprise. obviously someone stepped on the spider and killed it. no matter. they are fragile creatures ..
November 9, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry you don't have a life. You should try and get one. Lives are pretty good. I know because I have one.
November 9, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House tonight with President Barack Obama ....Netanyahu met for 1 hour and 40 minutes with Obama and left the White House without making any public remarks. The Obama administration, in a statement, said the president reaffirmed the “strong commitment” of the U.S. to Israel’s security and that the two leaders discussed Iran and “how to move forward on Middle East peace.”....
--Nov. 9 (Bloomberg)
November 10, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
It might be that the Al-Ersal project is the hinge of history for the future of the region, the decision of peace vs war. But it's not obvious. Israelis and Arabs alike find the Israeli government bureaucratic and difficult to work with, so that could be a factor.
For those Israelis who view the peacenik wing of the PA as doomed to be pushed aside, though, building them up only leaves more resources for more radical forces to take over. Pulling in Arafat from Tunis was seen as the way for the PA to defeat the Islamists, and it hasn't worked, so there is a sense that moving past that effort is the thing to do.
Right now, the PA recognizes Israel, but Fatah does not, leaving Israelis to wonder if the recognition is a shell game.
The status quo might lead to disaster, but many intelligent Israelis see the alternatives leading to worse disasters. It ain't easy.
Creating a Palestinian State could easily lead to a much larger war, with 10 or 100 times the deaths of the recent skirmishes. After all, Palestinian sovereignty means unlimited access to weapons and as many foreign volunteers as they can absorb.
November 10, 2009 7:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The status quo might lead to disaster, but many intelligent Israelis see the alternatives leading to worse disasters. It ain't easy."
Spoken like a true Afrikaner.
November 10, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read Tom Friedman's column as a suggestion to radically dial back the diplomacy. This sounds like what GW Bush did in the first year of his Presidency; it was changed by the 9/11 attacks.
November 10, 2009 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real Christian says: Blessed are the peacemakers.
November 10, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe worse than we thought.But we can prepare enough.
Billionaire Boys Club Jeans
November 12, 2009 1:47 AM | Reply | Permalink