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Candid, constructive commentary on Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, America’s Middle East policies and their domestic political context. 

Will the next generation figure out how to deal with the “Right of Return?”

Last Monday evening, I decided not to give up hope for peace in the Middle East. Every honest person involved in this issue needs to consciously make that decision from time to time, even when there is almost no rational basis for hope. The Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci, famously wrote of “pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.” When searching for shards of hope in the Middle East, too often one needs to rely on optimism of the subconscious, a kind of elemental energy that keeps surging of its own volition, in defiance of unrelentingly bleak news.

But sometimes there are more tangible reasons for optimism. This time, my reasons include a young Palestinian lawyer from Abu Dis, Abed Erekat, and a young Israeli Peace Now organizer from Tel Aviv, Noa Epstein. Together, and with the help of New York City psychologist and Americans for Peace Now activist Warren Spielberg, they have reinvigorated Peace Now’s Youth Dialogue Program, which offered hope in the 1990s but collapsed under the weight of the Intifadeh. They shared their experiences with a small group at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City, as they wound up a brief U.S. road show. Richard Greenberg of Washington Jewish WeeK saw them a few days before, and wrote;

The Israelis and the Palestinians have finally made peace.

At least a few of them have.

The symbolic accord (in the form of a broad conceptual framework for an agreement) was crafted in the fall during a seminar involving 50 Israeli and Palestinian college students meeting in a village midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

They negotiated under the supervision of two pragmatic optimists (one Arab, the other Jewish) connected with the Youth Dialogue program of the organization Peace Now..,demonstrating that an eventual resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not inconceivable, according to Noa Epstein, the Israeli half of the partnership.

“The idea is not to lose hope,” said Epstein, 25, a full-time activities coordinator for Peace Now who has a degree in international relations from Hebrew University. “If there is no hope, there is no point in staying in Israel. You have to cling to optimism and be an active optimist.”

She works in conjunction with Abed Erekat, a 27-year-old lawyer who lives in the West Bank community of Abu Dis, and whose command of English is not as accomplished as Epstein’s. Erekat said negotiations (at any level) are important because they serve as “nonviolent resistance to the [Israeli] occupation.” Asked if he, too, is optimistic, Erekat said: “Yes, but there must be a lot of work…

…The basic framework agreement the students hammered out last fall calls for a two-state solution to the conflict, with the borders of each state roughly coinciding with the 1967 lines of demarcation, according to Epstein. The Israelis and the Palestinians would each have a national capital in Jerusalem, with sovereignty of the Old City portion of Jerusalem being covered under a joint or international agreement.

In exchange for Israel removing its settlements in the territories and recognizing in principle the Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel proper, the Palestinians would not exercise that right. Palestinian refugees would be compensated financially, although the issue of Middle Eastern Jews who were displaced in 1948 and thereafter was not discussed, according to Epstein.

Nobody forced these college students to get together. They did it of their own accord. When I asked Erekat how they had managed to figure out the question of the refugees, which they addressed in a manner that is similar to the formula proposed in the Geneva Initiative, he said, “Palestinians are starting to look at the `right of return’ as something impractical…We know we can’t have millions of people return. We can see from this group that there is a way to discuss this `red line.’”

Israelis, and their Diaspora supporters, need to start looking at how “impractical” it is to pretend there is a solution to this conflict without at least acknowledging the “principle” of the right of return, and without finding a way to acknowledge that Israel bears some reponsibility for the “Naqba,” although the Arab states and Palestinian leadership at the time were hardly blameless.

In response to the previous post on this blog, Jonathan Mark and Richard Witty, along with a few others, went back and forth repeatedly about the refugee question. Jonathan believes the right of return is a non-starter and should be off the table completely, that Palestinians should be persuaded to accept the formula of “land for peace” and nothing else. as if their narrative and their demand for an apology for what occured in 1948 can simply be wished away. Or, as our “Teddy” noted in his comment, “The apology and the acknowlegement are vitally important to the Palestinian people and the constant recitation of the other narrative, the Zionist narrative, is not going to change that.”

At the other extreme are those who insist that an influx of Palestinian refugees to homes abandoned 60 years is a realistic optiion. It is easy to sit in the U.S. and make such pronouncements. Palestinians in Abu Dis and Ramallah and Israelis in Tel Aviv and Ashkelon do not have that luxury.

We might have to wait for another generation or two or three to figure this one out. But it is heartening to see that young people on both sides of the Green Line are forcing themselves to confront problems that most of their elders believe are either intractable or capable of being resolved by wishful thinking.

Topics: Palestinians, Middle East peace process, Israel, Israeli occupation, Peace Now | 1 Comment »

By Dan Fleshler | May 13, 2008

Guest review of Aaron David Miller’s book

First, another apology for not posting more than once a week. It’s likely that this will be the pattern until I finish my book about the Israel lobby. It is not adaptable to other media, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping Angelina Jolie will play my wife Lisa in the movie. Anthony Hopkins would be perfect for Mort Klein. Any suggestions for Bibi Netanyahu? (Anyone remember the name of the guy who played Darth Vader?).

At any rate, what follows is another contribution from Tom Mitchell, a very brief summary/review of Aaron David Miller’s new book. The last few paragraphs pry open the can of worms that has been opened before on this blog: the fact that Clinton’s Middle East team had so many American Jews. The “money quote”:

“While I don’t fault the participation, qualifications, or loyalty of any of the individuals in the team, I question the collective impact of having Middle East diplomacy dominated by one particular ethnic group, even if the individuals are executing the policy of the elected president. Imagine what American Jews and Israelis would think if the team was made up exclusively of Arab-Americans.”

When I first started hearing this complaint in the late ’90s, I had little patience for it. Now, piecing together what happened at Camp David and other critical junctures in the Clinton years, I reluctantly agree that it sent the wrong signal to the Arab world…
—————————————–
The Much Too Promised Land
By Aaron D. Miller
(NY: Bantam, 2008)

A review by Tom Mitchell

In 2003, Aaron Miller retired from the State Department after 20 years of service. He had played a major role in American Mideast policy during the administrations of George H Bush and Clinton administrations. The Much Too Promised Land covers the peace process from 1973 to 2003.

The first part of the book deals with American interests and goals in the region, as well as the domestic constraints on foreign policy. Miller deals with American Jewry and AIPAC at length and concludes that while AIPAC lobbying is a constraint, it is not an insurmountable obstacle and a determined administration can overcome it, as did Ford and Kissinger in 1975 and Bush and Baker in 1991. Much of what he writes about AIPAC is in conformity with what Dan Fleslher has written here and what Leonard Fein has written on his APN blog.

Next, Miller deals with American successes in Mideast diplomacy: the Kissinger shuttle diplomacy of the mid-1970s, Carter’s involvement from 1977-79, and James Baker from 1989 to 1991. In each period he focuses on the key American actor and the motivations and methods that he employed. The material is clearly based on his careful reading of participants’ memoirs, his own experiences and extensive interviews with American, Israeli, and Palestinian decision makers. But those wishing to learn in-depth the issues and details of the 1970s diplomacy will be disappointed. They should turn to William Quandt’s Peace Process for those details.

The next part is devoted to Clinton’s two terms and diplomacy on the Palestinian and Syrian tracts. Unlike other American decision makers such as Ross, Madeleine Albright, and President Clinton and Israelis Shlomo Ben-Ami and Ehud Barak, Miller does not blame the failure of the Camp David II summit in July 2000 exclusively on Yasir Arafat. The book seems to be a synthesis of the conventional American-Israeli version of events and the conclusions of Clayton Swisher, whose The Truth About Camp David blamed poor American preparation and strategy as well as Israel’s failure of nerve.

Miller blames everyone: the American team, Arafat and the Palestinians, Ehud Barak and even Syrian President Hafiz as-Assad. Assad is blamed for refusing to make the sort of political gestures that both Sadat and Arafat were willing to make in order to reassure the Israeli electorate and gain support for major territorial concessions. This resulted in Barak wasting much precious time on the Syrian track and not having enough time for the Palestinian track. Miller faults his own side for failing to make it clear to Assad that such gestures would be required and to the Israelis that a full withdrawal from the Golan would be necessary. And of course there was Arafat, who was pissed off with Barak for having given preference to the Syrians over him. Arafat chose to sulk during the summit.

Miller also reviews the diplomacy in the GW Bush Administration and asserts that Bush’s “hands off” approach won’t work in the Middle East. He concludes by arguing that successful Middle East diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible but not likely. This is because the easy lifting has already been done with Egypt and Jordan and conditions are not really ripe for a new breakthrough. Another advance would require major sacrifices by both sides—Israel in terms of territory, Syria in terms of gestures, and the Palestinians on the terms of settlement. He argues that to be successful. the U.S. would have to employ the deviousness of Kissinger, the missionary focus and attention to detail of Carter, and the ruthlessness of Baker.

Miller is clearly stating that successful diplomacy will not translate into domestic popularity. Each of the three successful figures he praises was anathema to large portions of the “organized American Jewish community.” Israelis understood that they were not paying for Kissinger’s salary, but many American Jews failed to understand that Kissinger’s first loyalty should be to his employer

He also deals briefly with the fact that the Mideast offices of both Baker and Clinton were mostly Gentile-free zones. He mentions that the Palestinians referred to him, Ross and Dan Kurtzer, the American ambassador to Israel as “the three rabbis” and Israelis close to Shamir referred to them as “Baker’s Jewboys.”

I recently watched an episode from the sixth season of “The West Wing” in which the Bartlett administration successfully mediates a Mideast peace agreement without the participation of the secretary of state, the national security advisor, or the assistant secretary of state for Near East. Instead the issue is debated among the president, his chief of staff, and two Jewish domestic affairs advisors. I wonder what Arabs not fully versed on the realities of American television and Hollywood thought when they saw it. Even if the episode was not shown in the Middle East, imagine all of the Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Palestinian students who might have seen it. While I don’t fault the participation, qualifications, or loyalty of any of the individuals in the team, I question the collective impact of having Middle East diplomacy dominated by one particular ethnic group, even if the individuals are executing the policy of the elected president. Imagine what American Jews and Israelis would think if the team was made up exclusively of Arab-Americans.

If I were teaching a course in regional conflict management I would have this book as a basic course text along with Jonathan Powell’s Great Hatred, Little Room on Blair’s Northern Ireland diplomacy.

Topics: Israel | 76 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | May 2, 2008

Carter was, and is, “Good for the Jews”

Before his controversial book used the “A-word” (apartheid), I never understood the reflexive, visceral hostility harbored for Jimmy Carter in the mainstream American Jewish community. He made a good many political mistakes early in his admnistration, using code words like “Palestinian homeland” and almost casually intimating that the U.S. and Israel should deal with the PLO before the community was ready for ithat kind of language, along with other gaffes. But he deserved better at the time and he deserves better now.

His latest book was deeply flawed. But even if one judges the man on the basis of whether he was and is “good for the Jews,” the Manichean prism through which my grandmother viewed the universe, he passes the test. Let me spell it out plainly: THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO PEACE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND EGYPT WITHOUT JIMMY CARTER’S MEDIATION. Doesn’t he deserve a certain amount of gratitude for that? He gets none. Instead, he has become a kind of totemic hate object for both the mainstream Jewish community here and the Israeli government.

It made absolutely no sense for Israeli officials and politicians to shun him during his recent trip to the region, as noted by Akiva Eldar in Haaretz. Leaving aside the lack of good manners, the Israeli government unaccountably passed on an opportunity to get valuable information about Hamas from one of the world’s most skilled diplomats.

Dr. Robert Pastor, senior adviser to the Carter Center…says that up-to-date information about contacts concerning the release of Shalit would have helped Carter get more from Meshal than a promise of a letter from the captive soldier..Some see the impressions gained by Carter and his people during their Middle East trip, particularly those gleaned from Damascus, as a gold mine for those who determine policy and make assessments. Researchers from Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the intelligence community usually pounce on any diplomat who had coffee with a minor Syrian adviser. Pastor cannot recall any incident in which an entire establishment has forsaken the rare opportunity to receive a firsthand briefing about such major issues on the national agenda.

Ten days ago, Haaretz had an equally sensible editorial called Our Debt to Jimmy Carter.

The editorialist’s take on the controversy over the A-word is worth reading, if only because one doesn’t see arguments like this in the American media:

It is doubtful whether it is possible to complain when an outside observer, especially a former U.S. president who is well versed in international affairs, sees in the system of separate roads for Jews and Arabs, the lack of freedom of movement, Israel’s control over Palestinian lands and their confiscation, and especially the continued settlement activity, which contravenes all promises Israel made and signed, a matter that cannot be accepted. The interim political situation in the territories has crystallized into a kind of apartheid that has been ongoing for 40 years. In Europe there is talk of the establishment of a binational state in order to overcome this anomaly. In the peace agreement with Egypt, 30 years ago, Israel agreed to “full autonomy” for the occupied territories, not to settle there.

These promises have been forgotten by Israel, but Carter remembers.

Whether Carter’s approach to conflict resolution is considered by the Israeli government as appropriate or defeatist, no one can take away from the former U.S. president his international standing, nor the fact that he brought Israel and Egypt to a signed peace that has since held. Carter’s method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him. For the peace agreement with Egypt, he deserves the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life.

Topics: Israel, American Jews, apartheid, Hamas | 11 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | April 25, 2008

Don’t just sit there and complain about American policy. Help J Street

At long last, the urgently-needed “J Street” project has been officially launched. It has generated a great deal of media attention, much of it positive, but the most important story by far was in yesterday’s Washington Post:

Some of the country’s most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political action committee and lobbying group aimed at dislodging what they consider the excessive hold of neoconservatives and evangelical Christians on U.S. policy toward Israel.

The group is planning to channel political contributions to favored candidates in perhaps a half-dozen campaigns this fall, the first time an organization focused on Israel has tried to play such a direct role in the political process, according to its organizers.

Organizers said they hope those efforts, coupled with a separate lobbying group that will focus on promoting an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, will fill a void left by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and other Jewish groups that they contend have tilted to the right in recent years.

The fact that it passed the Post’s litmus test as a real story will prod the political elite to take notice, even before it accomplishes anything concrete. Of course, the fact that it is backed by some prominent Democratic donors and fundraisers is even more important.

I am forced to restrain myself from writing too much on this initiative. That is mostly because I am writing a book on the domestic political context of American Middle East policy, and I don’t want to give away too much of what I’ve discovered in advance. Even if I wanted to, my publisher, Potomac Books, wouldn’t let me. But I have been observing the various phases J Street has gone through and know something about the attendant birth pains. Jeremy Ben-Ami (its executive director). Daniel Levy (the tireless Israeli peace promoter) and others who have worked so hard to make this happen deserve not just acclaim, but gratitude from everyone who see no contradiction between being pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian and pro-American.

Gershom Gorenberg, the gifted Israeli writer, succinctly sums up why J Street is important:

Reading the front page of my Hebrew paper last weekend, I tried to imagine an American senator saying something like, “I have great respect for the Israel Defense Forces. But eventually Israel will have to leave the West Bank. In its heart, the Israeli nation has already decided. The Israeli army should not create a rift with Palestinians that haunts us for generations. Think of Palestinians stripped at the checkpoints only because there might be terrorists among them. Think of those who stand for hours at checkpoints because we fear that a booby-trapped car could pass through.”

I didn’t have to make up that speech from scratch, because I was reading about Ehud Olmert saying words very similar to a forum of IDF commanders in the West Bank. The prime minister could say that despite their short-term security benefits, West Bank checkpoints have long-term moral and strategic costs for Israel. How many pro-Israel members of Congress fear that if they voiced the same concerns, AIPAC would soon be encouraging donations to their next primary opponent.

One of the most daunting challenges facing the American Jewish peace camp is that it is very difficult to give supporters concrete and useful things to do, other than write a check to organizations within that peace camp, or support activists in Israel, or sign petitions and letters about legislation and other Beltway business. J Street is something else, something new. In addition to wandering around your search engine and reading all about it, please please please make sure to go to its web site and help it succeed.

Kevin, MM, John Sinclair, and all of the other contributors who have never met a Zionist you could tolerate, I don’t want you to feel excluded. Please tell us if you think this initiative is misguided. And if you believe it is, please suggest another political path, another way to get from A [the intolerable status quo] to B [an end to Palestinian suffering].

Topics: Israel lobby, American foreign policy, Palestinians, Middle East peace process, Israel, American Jews, AIPAC | 18 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | April 16, 2008

Lessons for Israel from antebellum America: Guest column #3

What follows is the third in a series comparing Israel past and present with other nations that had internal conflicts. It is by Realistic Dove Resident Scholar Tom Mitchell (I don’t actually know where he lives and we’ve never met in person, but I am sure he will be honored by the designation). For those less interested in historical arcana than I am, here is Tom’s politically hardnosed, “money” quote:

“In my opinion only a Labor-led government can negotiate a peace with the Palestinians. Labor is now at less than half its strength under Rabin in 1992. The same is true of Meretz. The lesson for Labor [from antebellum American politicis] is that it must forge a new center-right party or a close alliance with Meretz. Its appeal to Israeli voters must be on the basis of fear of the Arab birthrate and of erasing the Green Line. The Likud, like the antebellum Democrats, is the expansionist party. Appeals based on being nice to the Arabs or doing them a favor will fail. And such a strategy to be successful may require a precipitating event like the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in 1854.”

I don’t know if he is correct, but here is an excerpt that is worth reading, with a few explanatory notes inserted by me:

ANTEBELLUM AMERICA: LESSONS FOR ISRAEL

What we can conclude from the example of antebellum America is that fighter-politicians will continue to be produced in Israel for some time—up to 20 years after the conclusion of a peace with the Palestinians. This is of importance because every peace agreement with the Arabs (from the armistice agreements of 1949 to the Kissinger agreements of 1974-75, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979 and the Oslo process) was negotiated by military politicians and serving generals. Thus, the future of this trend is of some importance.

It is also of importance because since 1974 the Labor Party has relied on military politicians—Arab fighters—to head their ticket in first or in second place. Since Golda Meir retired in 1974, Peres has been the only civilian leader elected prime minister for the Labor Party—and he had to split his term with Yitzhak Shamir.

The American Whig Party (1834-56) had this same fatal weakness. In twenty years the party fielded only two civilian presidential nominees and the second was shared with the American Party. Their only two elected presidents were both former generals (Harrison, Taylor) and both died prematurely in office. Only Henry Clay, the Whig leader, could have been elected president as a civilian—unfortunately he was their nominee in the wrong election and lost a close election in 1844.

The Whigs nominated their only remaining general in 1852 and he lost very badly. The Whigs were regenerated by merging with the antislavery Free Soil Party and northern Democrats to form an exclusively northern antislavery party, the Republicans. The Republicans combined Whig economic policy with Free Soil antislavery policy and quickly became the official opposition in their first election. They took the presidency in 1860 with a centrist candidate from a battleground state. The Republicans ran a racist campaign in 1856 and 1860, as did the Free Soilers in 1848, appealing to white fears of competition with slave labor in the West if slavery spread. [DF: this was Abe Lincoln’s party! The Democrats were the party defending slavery]

The Whig party collapsed because slavery causied a sectional divide between two wings of the party and because of inroads by nativists in the North. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill made the North ripe for a sectional party. [DF: Among other things, the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1856 allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery within those territories]. The Republicans slightly pandered to the nativist American Party electorate after aiding in its split on sectional lines in 1856. The Republicans then scooped up the votes of the North Americans in 1860.

In my opinion only a Labor-led government can negotiate a peace with the Palestinians. Labor is now at less than half its strength under Rabin in 1992. The same is true of Meretz. The lesson for Labor is that it must forge a new center-right party or close alliance with Meretz. Its appeal to Israeli voters must be on the basis of fear of the Arab birthrate and of erasing the Green Line. The Likud, like the antebellum Democrats, is the expansionist party. Appeals based on being nice to the Arabs or doing them a favor will fail. And such a strategy to be successful may require a precipitating event like the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Topics: Israel | 6 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | April 14, 2008

Free Marwan Barghouti?

What are the mainstream American Jewish organizations going to say if Israel releases a convicted murderer who is one of the Palestinians’ most powerful advocates of peace and a two-state solution?

o–Haaretz reports that:

“Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer on Saturday said that if Israel were interested in achieving peace, it had no choice but to free jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti. `Current negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinian Authority] are only virtual negotiations,” Ben-Eliezer said, adding “only the release of Barghouti could change things around.”

Asked about the current Palestinian leadership, Ben-Eliezer said “I have great respect for [Mahmoud] Abbas and Salam Fayad, but everything is now in the hands of Hamas. At this rate Hamas will soon take over the West Bank. The only person who could put a stop to that is Barghouti.”

Ben-Eliezer is known for having loose lips and a lack of self-control in his public statements, but he is a minister in the Kadima government, and it is hard to believe that Olmert and his people, or Livne and her people, were not aware that he was going to make these remarks. They come on the heels of reports that negotiators for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive since the summer of 2006, are now discussing a Shalit-Barghouti swap.

Furthermore, former prime ministerial candidate and Labor activist Amir Peretz is launching a campaign to free Barghouti, whose letter touting peace and a two-state solution was read aloud at a rally marking Peace Now’s 30th anniversary on Tuesday.

Barghouti refused to cooperate in legal proceedings that sentenced him to life for five murders. He was one of the leading forces behind the “Prisoners’ Document,” drafted with the participation of Hamas prisoners, which called for a two-state solution and negotiations leading to a comprehensive peace. As a veteran of the first intifadeh and leader of the Tanzim, Fateh militants in the West Bank, he has the military credentials and, more importantly, the grassroots constituency that Mahmoud Abbas lacks.

There has already been a reaction from something called the Israel Hasbara Committee, which called Peace Now a “far leftist organization” and responded to the Barghouti letter by citing a recent poll in which a majority of Palestinians backed violence. (An aside: in Israel, the real far left is anti-Zionist, and does not count Peace Now among its allies, to say the least. I wonder what these people would call University of Haifa professor Ilan Pappe, whose latest book is The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. An “infinitely distant leftist?”).

No doubt the Israeli and pro-Israeli right will keep asserting that “we have seen this movie before, the decision to talk to Arafat and give him a base in the territories was an unmitigated disaster, Barghouti is a wolf in sheep’s clothihg, all Palestinian leaders –Abbas included– are wolves in sheep’s clothing, freeing someone with `blood on his hands’ will send a message that violence against Israelis will go unpunished, the only solution is to, uh, well, we don’t really have a solution, don’t change the subject…”

But what will the more centrist and center-right American Jewish organizations (like American Jewish Committee or ADL) say and do if the Olmert government, understanding that the current stand-off with an increasingly popular Hamas is accomplishing nothing, makes a brave choice, and sets Barghouti free? What will the Conference of Presidents do? Will they react the same way they reacted to the Oslo accords, and give tepid, unenthusiastic backing to what was essentially a courageous experiment? Will Jewish centrists stand up to their right wing as fervently as they have stood up to the non-Zionist and anti-Zionist left in this country and in Europe?

Let us hope they are faced with such a choice. How many times have we heard that what the Palestinians need is a Nelson Mandela, a leader who could both unite them and be a partner for the painful, complex negotiations necessary to free both peoples from an intolerable status quo? It is impossible to say with certainty that Barghouti could play a comparable role. It is possible to say with certainty that unless something dramatic occurs and Palestinians have a government with the ability to enforce a compromise –with Hamas’ cooperation, however begrudging– the current negotiations between the PA and Israel will not change the tragic facts on the ground. Without an enforceable compromise, we will never wake up from this nightmare. There is a chance, albeit slim, that Barghouti could help Abbas deliver an agreement that the Palestinians could conceivably accept, and then help to make it stick. It is certainly worth a try.

Topics: Palestinians, Middle East peace process, Israel, American Jews, Hamas, Marwan Barghouti, Peace Now | 6 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | April 10, 2008

What lessons can be learned from Northern Ireland?

Below is the second column by Tom Mitchell. I have always told myself that the main “lesson” that can be learned from Northern Ireland is that violent, longstanding and seemingly intractable ethnic or religious conflicts eventually can be solved. It has been a source of hope. I am not sure if Tom agrees with that premise. Hope so. I also hope Tom won’t mind that I made a few parenthetical comments:

NORTHERN IRELAND’S LESSONS FOR THE MIDEAST

Introduction
Having previously demonstrated that Northern Ireland is the case closest to Israel, I will briefly look at the main lessons of the peace process from Northern Ireland and their application to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Lessons
First, it was the centrist parties that started the process.

In Northern Ireland there were deep divisions on both the nationalist Catholic and unionist Protestant sides. The nationalists had two main political parties, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Fein. The SDLP opposed the armed struggle conducted by Sinn Fein’s armed wing, the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The unionists were traditionally split into two main political parties, the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

During the peace process, the centrist Protestant UUP did its negotiating exclusively with the moderate Catholic nationalist SDLP, while pointedly ignoring Sinn Fein. Only the [Irish and British] governments negotiated with the terrorist parties, because the governments were the ones responsible for the issues that concerned those parties. [DF: So, is one lesson that the situation in Israel-Palestine might be helped if the U.S. negotiated with Hamas?]

Second, there were preconditions that participants to the negotiations had to meet. All participants had to swear-off violence and had to agree to decommission any illegal weapons they might have. These conditions were known as the Mitchell Principles, after Senator George Mitchell who came up with them and served as the chair of the talks. [DF: The very same man who came up with the “Mitchell Plan” to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Guess one out of two ain’t bad]

Third, it was the joint Anglo-Irish dual mediation that kept the talks going and was responsible for finally successfully implementing the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Two British and three Irish governments worked closely together. In both countries the negotiations and NIPP had bipartisan support from the main political parties. British prime ministers spent up to 40 percent of their weekly time on the Northern Ireland Peace Process (NIPP). It had top priority even during the start of the Iraq war.

This process worked because the two governments were less emotionally invested in the conflict than were their respective clients whose views they represented in formulating the framework for the process. Periodically they would issue new documents when needed to serve as parameters for the process. Outside governments like Washington, Helsinki, and Ottowa also contributed to the NIPP at the invitation of the two governments. Of these the largest contribution by far was by Washington.

Fourth, the NIPP dragged on for so long because the British government was unwilling to back up its side after the Republican Movement (Sinn Fein/IRA) failed to disarm in the allotted time period. London was mainly interested in avoiding a renewal of IRA bombing of London and other British cities and so was afraid to confront and pressure Sinn Fein. This also undermined the SDLP as more nationalists voted for Sinn Fein as they saw that its strategy was paying off.

Fifth, the NIPP worked because the UUP was willing to ignore violence including major bombings by dissident republican organizations and still keep negotiating. UUP leader David Trimble decided that an agreement was in the unionist interest. The Omagh bombing in August 1998, the worst in the history of the conflict, also served to end public support for the armed struggle and bring the two sides together.

Sixth, the UUP under Trimble was willing to negotiate before the Republicans had completed their journey from violence to democracy. It took the IRA 31 years from its founding in 1970 to its first act of decommissioning in October 2001 to make that journey. It took another four years to complete that journey. It is probably necessary to engage a terrorist organization/liberation movement before it has completed the journey to give it the incentive to do so. [DF: This may well be the most important lesson of all].

Seventh, the UUP paid a big price and the SDLP a slightly lesser price when the peace process failed between 2001 and 2005. The UUP will probably never again become the leading voice in unionism. If it does, it will take decades. The SDLP can only be saved by merging it with a party from the Republic.

Application to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Unfortunately, there is no real Palestinian equivalent of the SDLP. Fatah is the equivalent of the IRA. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are the equivalent of the dissident republicans. Labor is the equivalent of the UUP and the Likud is of the DUP. The equivalent of Dublin would be the European Union. Instead of calling for Washington to be more balanced—which goes against both historical and political reality—its pro-Israel bias should be balanced by bringing in the Europeans. It is doubtful that Labor, having already paid a heavy price for the failure of the Oslo process, will want to back a new peace process if the results are doubtful going into it. Barak’s hesitation is perfectly understandable.

Only two American presidents have devoted the same time and effort to the Mideast Peace Process that the British and Irish prime ministers devoted to the NIPP. These were Carter from 1977 to 1979 and Clinton during the last six months of 2000. Clinton devoted his attention after it was already too late and time was too short. Much of the fault for this is with the parties: the Palestinians failed to act sufficiently to curb terrorism and the Netanyahu government was unwilling to carry out Israeli obligations under the process. To be successful American support for the peace process will have to again become a bipartisan American effort as it was in the 1970s. With a devoted Washington-Brussels dual mediation effort the Mideast Peace Process stands a slim chance of success; without it there is no chance for success.

Topics: Israel | 13 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | April 2, 2008

Is Israel a settler colony like South Africa?: A guest column

This blog is fortunate to get regular contributions from Tom Mitchell, a scholar who has carefully analyzed the similarities and differences between Israel, South Africa and Northern Ireland. He sent me a summary of a longer article. I thought I would publish it, as people on the far left often claim that there is little difference between South Africa under apartheid and contemporary Israel. And people on the right deny that there is any similarity. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. In addition. peaceniks like me often point to the reconciliation achieved in Northern Ireland as a sign of hope and a shining example for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tom offers some insights into the similarities and differences.

Tom is the author if Native vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, published in 2000 by Greenwood Press. He then took some of the unused material from that book and wrote a second one, Indispensable Traitors: Liberal Parties in Settler Conflicts, also published by Greenwood two years later. Below is the summary of an article published in the Journal of Conflict Studies in the Winter 2004 issue. It is scholarly and not polemical, which means some of you will have no use for it, but I hope the rest if you dive in and follow his analysis.

ISRAELI POLITICS AS SETTLER POLITICS

Conventional wisdom in much of Western academia is that Israel is a settler colony, and that this means that it is another apartheid state a/la South Africa. Below is analysis showing why I believe that the first half of this equation is true, but the second half is false. The strategies employed to bring peace in South Africa and Northern Ireland were very different, so it is important to determine which one Israel more closely resembles. This determines why we should go with mediation and not sanctions.

Israel’s politics is characterized by the following six main features:

1) Numerous political parties are in the Knesset, which in turn results in weak coalition governments.
2) There are powerful religious parties with no equivalent in the West and comparable to Islamic parties in the Third World (Indonesia, Turkey).
3) Israeli politics is populated with many former senior military officers, creating a class of Arab-fighter politicians comparable to native-fighter politicians in the U.S. and S. Africa.
4) In the past, there were two important parties (Herut, Ahdut Ha’Avoda) that were paramilitary parties. Their descendants are the two main Israeli parties today.
5) The Arab question or native question has been the main issue in Israeli politics, dividing parties of the left and right since before independence.
6) In Israel, Jews and Arabs have a different legal status under formal law constituting a legal distinction between settlers and natives.

These six features can be divided into two groups: the first two, which are not features of settler societies, and the last four, which are features of settler societies. The combination of the last four features makes Israeli politics a variant of settler politics—the political features that are typical of independent settler colonies such as the United States, South Africa, etc. that are also democracies.

When looking for settler societies to compare Israel with, I looked for societies that were a) democratic; b) involved in prolonged conflict with the native population; and c) either independent or at least autonomous. This last requirement eliminated nearly all of the dependent settler colonies that were run by local representatives of the European settler power rather than by the local settlers.

I found three societies that could usefully be compared with Israel: Northern Ireland, antebellum America, and South Africa. Each of these three societies is useful for comparing with a different aspect of Israel.

Northern Ireland exhibits all of the above six features except for number 3 (because the UK is responsible for its security). The United States exhibited traits 3,5, and 6, and briefly had a multiparty system between 1828 and 1860 but no coalition governments. South Africa exhibited traits 3, 5, and 6 and had a genuine multiparty system from 1910 to 1950 and had two stable two-party coalition governments in the interwar period. Thus, if one looks at it, Israel has more of these settler traits than any of the three societies being compared with it. Northern Ireland lacks a native-fighter politician class, while both the U.S. and S. Africa lack paramilitary parties.

Northern Ireland can most usefully be compared with Israel when examining the peace process with the Palestinians and interparty and intraparty dynamics. Because it is only a province of the UK, it has no foreign policy and so cannot be used for comparison of foreign policy with Israel. But because the Arab-fighter politician class is such an important feature in Israeli politics, comparisons of Israel with Northern Ireland need to supplemented with either the U.S. or S. Africa. .

South Africa can be divided into three main periods: the period of the Boer republics from 1860-1900; the Union of South Africa from 1910-1950; and the Republic of South Africa from 1961-1994. African-fighter politicians were most important in the South African Republic (ZAR or Transvaal), particularly from 1881 to 1900. But the ZAR had a weak two-party system rather than a multiparty system, had no standing army, and had less than 10,000 men voting in its presidential elections during this period. So it is clearly not suitable for comparison with Israel.

Military politicians were also important in the Union of South Africa, which did have a three- to four-party system, a standing army, and a much larger population. There were no military conflicts with the native population of South Africa, however, during this period. Politics was centered on ethnic disputes between Afrikaners and English-speakers rather than on the native question. During the Republic of South Africa under apartheid, there was only one elected African-fighter politician, General Magnus Malan. This indicates that South Africa is not a particularly useful supplementary case for looking at internal politics in Israel.

The U.S. had a weak three-party system from 1828 to 1848, with the third party being mainly represented at the local and state levels rather than the federal level, present only in the North, and combining with one or both of the two main parties to form new parties. With its presidential system. it completely lacked coalition governments. But the U.S. did have a party, the Whigs, that was dependent on the charisma of former generals to head its tickets. And it did carry out transfer of the native population, the Indians of the East to the West. This latter subject comes up off and on in Israeli politics since the 1940s. The Whigs can usefully be compared to Labor, the Democrats to the Likud, and the third parties (Antimasons, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party) to Mapam and Meretz. The Know Nothings or American Party of 1854-57 can also be compared to Tommy Lapid’s Shinui Party both as a nativist party and with its sudden success and sudden collapse. Beyond that party comparisons are not available.

South Africa is useful for comparing with Israel’s regional defense policy. South Africa and Israel both were/are peripheral countries in conflict with the core of their region. In the Middle East the core is Arab states. In sub-Saharan Africa the core is made up of independent African states and the white settler colonies were the periphery. South Africa and Israel had similar strategies of supporting minority peoples in the Arab countries and black neighbors such as the Kurds in Iraq and Christians in Lebanon and Sudan, and the Ndebele in Zimbabwe and various minority peoples in Namibia. Both countries also engaged in numerous cross-border raids and invasions. In this regard it is useful to compare Israeli policy in Lebanon and South African policy in Angola.

Between 1967 and the mid-1990s Israel was dependent on migrant Palestinian labor from the territories in the same way that white South Africa was dependent on black labor from the homelands (bantustans). But this migrant Palestinian labor is much reduced today as a result of Israeli recruitment of East Asian and East European workers in reaction to the Islamist terrorist campaign of the 1990s and the Al-Aksa Intifada.

Likud plans for a Palestinian state under Sharon could also fairly be compared to South Africa’s bantustan system. Any plans for leaving a Palestinian state made up of several non-contiguous parts can be compared to most of the South African homelands in particular the KwaZulu and Bophutatswana homelands. With the above in my opinion, the usefulness of the South African comparison has exhausted itself.

The purpose of making these comparisons is not to delegitimize Israel. It should be borne in mind that the Israeli Jews are not only settlers but also returned natives, that is the original population of the country that returned with the support of the international community. So in its origins Israel is a unique settler society. But as a result of the ongoing native-settler conflict with the Palestinians, Israel developed features typical of other settler societies.

The comparisons are not meant to replace traditional methods of political analysis of Israeli politics and policy, but to augment them. When radio telescopes, X-ray telescopes and infrared telescopes were developed, astronomers did not stop using optical telescopes but merely used these new instruments to give a fuller picture of distant galaxies and our own galaxy. I make these comparisons in the same spirit. If Dan will indulge me, I will explore the lessons of Northern Ireland and the U.S. for Israel in two further pieces.

Topics: Israel, apartheid | 21 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | March 31, 2008

Israel, human rights and the silence of [most] American Jews

Those who empathize with the plight of Palestinians under occupation are often puzzled by American Jews’ silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, especially when the suffering results from Israeli actions that much of the world deems to be human rights abuses. A whole industry exists to monitor and refute human rights NGOs whenever they set their signs on Israel. Worse, even mentioning Palestinian misfortunes is suspect in some quarters, as Barack Obama has learned.

But it is not just the pro-Israel right wingers and centrists who either defend or mutely accept the way Israelis treat their neighbors. It is also my camp, the liberals who crave compromise. Some of us marched against the Vietnam war and even against the Iraq war. Some of us give money to help victims in Darfur and shelters for battered women here at home. If we are within the Jewish communal tent, not enough of us can bring ourselves to say very much out loud about the battering of an entire people.

I include myself in this category, guilty as charged, looking back on my own reactions to sundry allegations of Israel’s human rights violations. I think it is important for American Jews who support Israel to stop suppressing their moral instincts, to stop ignoring what is best within themselves, and to start finding a language, a vocabulary to acknowledge the horrors of occupation. But before providing a prescription, we need the diagnosis.

“It blows my mind that my Jewish brothers and sisters, who are with me on Darfur, who were with me on South Africa, can’t bend themselves to deal with injustice to the Palestinians,” said a Protestant minister whom I interviewed for my book. “I just never understood it.”

One simple answer is that American Jews who agree with the minister on most issues view the realities of the region through an entirely different prism, which reflects Israelis’ sense of permanent vulnerability and their fierce determination not to be vulnerable.

American Jews who see themselves as ethical and caring can usually find reasonable explanations and justifications for Israeli activities that the world abhors. The core argument is the same one used in Israel: what appears to be cruel and unjust behavior is usually an unfortunate, unavoidable consequence of The Situation that Israelis and Arabs are mired in. Plus, we have a rooting interest in information and arguments that prop up our craving to believe in the Israelis, while others have a rooting interest in finding ways to blame them. The raw truth is usually the victim.

Object to the missiles that repeatedly killed non-combatants in Gaza or Lebanon, and you will be assured that Israel has done everything possible to avoid collateral damage, Israel has been much more careful about shedding innocent blood than its adversaries, Israel is perfectly within its rights under the Geneva convention to go after enemy combatants that hide among civilians. Besides, you will be told, we can’t be armchair moralists judging Israelis by western, humanistic standards; they live in a tough neighborhood where there is no respect for the weak…Look at how the Lebanese army shelled Palestinian refugee camps unmercifully a few months ago in their fight with militant jihadists..I’ve made those arguments.

Object to anything that al-Jazeera decides to transform into yet another symbol of Zionist bestiality, and eventually you are likely to hear evidence that the truth has been distorted by Palestinian propagandists and their media allies. When Israel assaulted the West Bank village of Jenin during the second intifadeh, at first the international media alleged that hundreds of innocent Palestinians had been massacred and that bulldozers had crushed houses and destroyed property for no discernable reason. Later, media and some human rights groups changed their story; they said there had been no massacre, and most of the Palestinian casualties were armed combatants. The truth was probably somewhere in between, but you could almost hear the sounds of Israel’s friends around the world, including me, breathing sighs of relief.

Another reason for our silence is that the world unfairly singles out Israel for its abuses, real or imagined, and ignores even worse behavior by, say, the armies of central Africa or Sri Lanka or the security services of every Arab country. To liberals with a connection to Israel, the intense, remarkably single-minded focus on the Jewish state by the United Nations Human Rights Council and a large swath of the blogosphere is so suspicious, and so offensive, that we feel reluctant to add to the clamor of its avowed enemies. We certainly don’t want to give rhetorical fodder to those who blithely call for tearing down the “apartheid wall” –not changing the route of the security barrier, but obliterating the whole thing– and refuse to acknowledge that Israelis need protection from those who want to blow themselves up in shopping malls and discos.

But sometimes, what we read about or see on our T.V. screens makes it impossible to counter allegations of indefensible Israeli behavior. When that happens, something besides logic and evidence kicks in, we are left with little except a panicky unwillingness to believe Israelis are behaving as badly as people claim.

So, we look the other way if we come across tidbits like the following, from a B’Tselem press release this past December:


A survey conducted by the Israeli military and published by leading Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, found that a quarter of soldiers serving at checkpoints in the West Bank perpetrated or witnessed abuse of Palestinians. In response, B’Tselem, said that the numbers are shocking, but not surprising. The organization commends the military for initiating the survey, but states that physical and verbal abuse of Palestinians by soldiers, particularly at checkpoints, has long become routine. In spite of official condemnations, the military does not do enough to ensure accountability and to deter soldiers from engaging in such behavior.

According to B’Tselem, most soldiers who harm Palestinians are never held accountable. Law enforcement authorities place numerous obstacles on Palestinians who try to complain against security forces personnel and only a small minority of complaints result in charges against those responsible for abuse.

There must be a reasonable explanation,” we try to tell ourselves. “There must be something terribly wrong with the way this story is being told, even if it is the Israeli army itself that is telling it.”

We try to tell ourselves, “there must be a reasonable explanation for the extra-judicial, execution-style killings of four Palestinians sitting in a car in Bethlehem,” as reported today by Richard Silverstein in Tikun Olam. “Ok, it’s suspicious, but war is hell.”

“There must have been a very good, sound military reason for bombing that power plant in Gaza and inflicting darkness for half a day, for months, on a civilian population,” we try to tell ourselves, even though reasonable people called it a clear violation of international law. “And even if it is a war crime,” we tell ourselves, “why say anything? Israel has enough problems, enough enemies…”

After awhile, though, the evidence accumulates and becomes too troubling to be discarded or wished away. The anguished testimony of the Israeli soldiers in “Breaking the Silence” makes a mockery of willfull denial. “Breaking the Silence” is an explicitly non-political organization that just lets those who have served in the territories speak for themselves about the level of brutality and wanton cruelty. They are not refuseniks. Most of them return to the IDF every year for reserve duty. They want their own society to wake up to what Israeli soldiers are being asked to do, and, sadly, what some of them eagerly volunteer to do. Read what they have to say on the group’s web site.

When the pro-Israel left in this country confronts what Palestinians are subjected to, the standard response is that there is no such thing as a benign occupation. Unless and until there is a political solution, we assert, morally grounded Israeli soldiers and border police will be forced into circumstances where it is difficult and sometimes impossible to be humane, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to be good. I use that argument, all the time, and it is true…up to a point.

But lately, I am tired of relying upon it as the exclusive answer. The problem is not merely that the brutality and humiliation inflicted on Palestinians is an inevitable consequence of occupation; the problem is that is just plain WRONG. Why can’t we say that? What happened to our moral compass?

Yes, those who focus only on Israeli behavior without putting it into context, without appreciating that steps must be taken to protect Israel’s borders, have also lost their moral compass. Yes, the Palestinians have in many ways brought this situation upon themselves [e.g, there used to be a vocal peace camp in Israel; it was shattered by the second Palestinian intifadeh. Now, the prospect of Hamas rockets being hurled at Tel Aviv from the West Bank has made it even harder to put that dovish, Humpty Dumpty back together again]. But once that context is affirmed, the reasons for decrying the brutality and humiliation become compelling and the rationalizations for saying nothing become very hollow.

Rabbis for Human Rights is an Israeli organization that does not hesitate to call some Israeli policies morally reprehensible and contrary to Torah values. A few American rabbis, like Arthur Waskow, are associated with it. But thus far, its message has been unheard or barely noticed, let alone echoed, in the organized American Jewish community.

The unwillingness of American Jews to say, simply, “This is wrong!” has many consequences, in addition to the way it contributes to the corrosion of souls and hearts. What should also be of concern to the mainstream Jewish community is that the silence contributes to the alienation of Jewish college students and young adults from anything remotely connected to Israel. That does not matter to the anti-Zionists who believe the whole enterprise of Israel is illegitimate, but it should matter to anyone who wants to help fix what is broken in Israel.

Yes, speaking out forcefully against Israeli policies and behaviors will add fuel to the fiery rhetoric of those who don’t want the Jewish state to exist. That is undeniable; it is a problem and I have never come up with a solution to it. But a greater risk is that an entire generation of Diaspora Jews will want nothing more to do with Israel. There are a host of Israeli organizations trying their best to monitor and change unjust Israeli policies; instead of connecting our young people with those groups and showing there is a way to be pro-Israel and true to their ideals and values, much of the community either derides or shuns those groups. That is why the message from Israelis like Rabbi David Froman, one of the more articulate activists in Rabbis for Human Rights, is decidedly Zionist. After deriding those in the UK and elsewhere who want to boycott Israeli academics, he tells us:

And yet, we know in our hearts of hearts that while such boycotts are not justified on the universal plain of comparisons, there are more than a few elements of truth in what these hypocrites claim. For one segment of the population over whom we have responsibility, we have abrogated any semblance of democracy. It is especially painful that some in South Africa have joined the fray of those who boycott us, because of that country’s moral authority - given how blacks suffered years of unspeakable oppression under white minority rule.

But how would one describe certain things we are doing in the West Bank that have virtually no security value - checkpoints between Palestinian villages and within Palestinians cities; separate roads for Palestinians; thousands of Palestinians arrested under administrative detention; confiscation of Palestinian property for illegal Jewish settlements; a twisted route for Israel’s security barrier that separates Palestinians from their lands and divides villages in half; administrative home demolitions; covert protection for Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians tending their agricultural fields; preventing Israelis who marry Palestinians from living in Israel; banning Palestinians from swimming in natural springs along the Dead Sea?

And yet, despite the above, Israel’s present situation is still not politically analogous to South Africa’s history of discrimination; and so, we confidently argue that “apartheid” is not an appropriate term to apply to what we are doing in the West Bank. But what term would one choose to define a privileged protectionism for a few thousand Jews in the West Bank over a separate and unequal existence for over two million Palestinians?

…We have shamed ourselves as a Jewish state that sought to educate the world that we would not be a nation like other nations and that the Zionist enterprise would fashion a society based on a prophetic vision of social justice. Instead, we have created a moral morass - and, if it takes the hypocritical self-righteousness of some foreign pseudo-intellectuals and pig-headed unionists to open our eyes and alter this unacceptable reality, then something positive will ultimately be served.

Something positive will be served if Americans who want both Israel and Palestine to thrive, side by side, stop keeping their eyes closed and their mouths shut.

Topics: Palestinians, Israel, Zionism, American Jews, Far left, Israeli occupation, Gaza Strip | 13 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | March 28, 2008

Why most checkpoints are unnecessary: a primer

When my previous post about the checkpoint at Sheikh Sa’eb was published in July, in slightly different form, I received an angry email from a friend of a friend. An excerpt:

“If the IDF says we need all of them [the checkpoints], who are you to say they’re wrong? Where do you get off giving military advice to Israeli generals from your liberal American playpen? [Israelis] need the checkpoints and they need the wall just where they are, thank you. If the killers stop coming after them, Israelis won’t need the checkpoints and the wall. End of story.”

Love that phrase, “liberal American playpen…”

Today, Sadie Goldman and Jason Proetorius over at Israel Policy Forum supplied a response. They have come up with an excellent explanation of the checkpoints and barriers, the VAST MAJORITY OF WHICH ARE THERE TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR ISRAELI SETTLERS, and have nothing to do with protecting anyone in Israel proper. More and more Israeli security experts who have outgrown their playpens think Israel should eliminate most –although not all– of them. Here’s their analysis, quoted in full:

Understanding Checkpoints

By Sadie Goldman with Jason Proetorius and IPF Staff

One of the most onerous aspects of the situation in the West Bank is the system of checkpoints which block Palestinians from getting to work, school, hospital or even to visit friends a few miles (sometimes a few blocks) away without being stopped and delayed, often for hours. This is well-known here in the United States, especially because the Bush administration has made clear that it wants many of the checkpoints removed.

Less understood is that very few checkpoints separate Israel from the Palestinian areas. The overwhelming majority of them are internal barriers which serve not to protect Israel from terrorists but simply to ease life for settlers and to make Palestinian lives miserable. In fact, no one suggests taking down any checkpoint or border crossing that separates Israel from the West Bank or Gaza. The entire controversy is over the internal checkpoints and their onerous effects on Palestinians trying to get about their lives. Terrible as the situation is, some people find humor in it, so ridiculous is the rationale for aspects of the checkpoint system.

A Hummous Hut employee is stopped by a soldier who misunderstands “hummous” for “Hamas.” A woman driving with her dog is stopped at a checkpoint and explains that, while she does not have papers to enter Jerusalem, her dog does. These light-hearted vignettes—from the 2005 Oscar winning short film “a West Bank story” and Suad Amiry’s book Sharon and My Mother-in-Law, respectively—use humor to explain the physical barriers scattered throughout the West Bank in simple, human terms.

For Israelis, the reason for instituting roadblocks and checkpoints since the beginning of the second intifada in which over a thousand Israelis were killed is also simple and human—to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel. “The method of roadblocks has proven itself,” Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a group of soldiers on February st. “There is no way to effectively fight terrorism without actual daily control of the area,” he said.

However, according to a group of twelve retired Israeli generals, some of whom were involved in setting up West Bank barriers, the system of over 560 roadblocks and checkpoints, which increased by 50% in two and a half years, needlessly harms Palestinians and ineffectively protects Israelis. (According to the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, as of November 2007 there were 99 permanent checkpoints, 36 of which were on Israel’s border and 63 within the West Bank. The remaining 486 barriers [as of November 2007] are roadblocks, such as dirt mounds, concrete blocks, fences, trenches, and gates.)

At a Van Leer Institute conference on February 13, these experts, informally called the “checkpoint team,” presented a position paper, which they also sent Barak. In it they assert that, while some barriers stop terror, others damage the Palestinian economy, breed resentment, and, in turn, create more terror. According to Shlomo Brom, one of the group’s members and former chief of the army’s planning committee, quoted in Laurie Copans’ February 13th Associated Press article, “The feeling of humiliation and the hate the roadblocks create increase the tendency of Palestinians to join militant groups. . .”

These barriers, furthermore, do not always stop attacks. They did not stop the February 4th suicide bombing in Dimona that killed one and injured eleven, Brom went on to note.
But the major problem that the defense officials cite is not with the few checkpoints on Israel’s borders (to stop attacks like the one in Dimona, they support finishing the fence along Israel’s border). The cause of the most needless hardship, they say, is the hundreds of barriers that form a complicated network of checkpoints and roadblocks, which divide the West Bank into separate, isolated sections.

From the outside, the technical terms that are often used interchangeably to explain West Bank barriers seem confusing. According to the group, however, the differences are important and should be demystified.

The West Bank barriers fit into two major categories: checkpoints and roadblocks. Checkpoints can be permanent (toll-both like) structures manned by Israeli soldiers or temporary checkpoints (flying checkpoints) that are placed according to intelligence and are meant to be taken down. The majority of West Bank barriers are roadblocks that come in many forms, such as concrete blocks or earth mounds or trenches that stop cars from using a particular road.

It is this mixed system of barriers that can make a thirty-minute trip from the village of Azun to Nablus take two hours. In a March 6 Washington Post article, Griff Witte described such a trip taken by emergency-room doctor Karim Edwan. To get from his village of Azzun to work in Nablus, Witte writes, “Dr. Edwan must take at least two cabs, skirt a barbed-wire fence, climb a dirt mound, talk his way through multiple Israeli checkpoints and remove his shoes for a full-body security check.”

The checkpoint team calls for a reevaluation of the barriers that cause hardship, like that caused Dr. Edwan, without serving a specific security purpose. One of its members, retired Brigadir-General Ilan Paz, who served in the West Bank during the Intifada, gave the example of a checkpoint that he established that no longer serves its intended purpose. “I founded the Qalandia checkpoint years ago as a flying security checkpoint for a specific reason,” he told IRIN, a U.N. news source, on February 14 “to prevent a specific attack we had intelligence on . . . that checkpoint hasn’t been removed years later.”

According to Paz, the Qalandia checkpoint demonstrates that when there is specific intelligence, checkpoints can be very effective in stopping attacks. However, as things change on the ground, they can become useless and even detrimental. In some instances, the defense experts noted, barriers were put in place, not to stop terror attacks but to separate roads used by Israelis and Palestinians. And, while no longer serving that purpose, they remain in place.

According to Ron Schatzberg, another member of the group, “Near Jenin there is an Israeli settlement called Sheve Shomron. Since the start of the intifada Palestinians have not been allowed to travel on the area’s main road, due to security concerns. A three-meter-high wall has since been erected, a new road has been built for settlers and an army division has based itself there.” “However,” he was cited in IRIN, “Palestinians still can’t use the main roads.”

The team believes that by ending the system of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank not only could earth mounds that stop car traffic be removed, but Israeli security could be enhanced because “militants would find it harder to mount attacks without harming Palestinians,” IRIN reported.

Furthermore, instead of maintaining ineffective checkpoints inside the West Bank, the team proposes finishing constructing the barrier around it, and removing some permanent checkpoints, particularly those that have a major impact on Palestinians without providing Israelis security. These checkpoints could be replaced, as needed, with temporary “flying” checkpoints that rely on intelligence that is gathered and used in cooperation with Palestinian security services, as was done before 2000.

These changes, they propose, would ease Palestinian movement and enhance Israeli security in several ways, not the least of which, through strengthening the economy in the West Bank and aiding in the confidence building demanded by the current U.S. led peace process.

This process, and the U.S. administration officials that are pushing for it, have been frustrated by inaction on checkpoints. In a March 9th David Ignatius op-ed, a U.S. official described this frustration, “What they [the Israeli military] said they would look at hasn’t happened. The IDF has been doing the same stuff the same way [on checkpoints] for seven years, and they haven’t bothered to change.”

The checkpoint team has proposals for change, but without concerted efforts, it could become just another proposal. Making it something more, in clearly difficult times, will take risk, work, and coordination by both Palestinians and Israelis. Or, as Elvis Presley once put it, “a little less conversation, a little more action please.”

Topics: Israel | 44 Comments »

By Dan Fleshler | March 19, 2008

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