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Candid, constructive commentary on Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, America’s Middle East policies and their domestic political context.
In Israel, a nation brainwashes itself on the Gaza flotilla
Writing about the Israeli reaction to the attack on the Gaza flotilla, Larry Derfner, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, sent the following note to a small group yesterday. He was kind enough to let me quote it in full:
For those of you in the U.S., you’re missing out on the experience of a nation brainwashing itself. The TV and radio reporters, commentators and interviewees are repeating the official line word for word – that Israel was acting in self-defense, that the guilty ones were the terrorists on the ship. No one questions whether we have the right to blockade Gaza, no one stops to take in the lopsided death and injury toll – no, once again, we’re the persecuted, they’re the persecutors.
After interviewing one of the handful of Israeli leftists who demonstrated at Ashdod port, a radio reporter, to put things in context, said, “He failed to mention that he wouldn’t be able to say such things in an Arab country.” I was watching the TV news in a hospital waiting room in Ashkelon, and it was like sitting with the home team fans at a game. “Some humanitarian act, some peace activists,” said one guy. The announcer says Jordan has condemned Israel, and somebody says, “Jordan! They kill Palestinians by the dozens.” Everybody’s on board, excuse the pun.
The only criticism leveled by the media is on the strictly military aspect of the raid. Otherwise, they’re exploring how Israel should spin this. All the talking heads and all the men and women in the street are propagandists today – exactly like they were during the war in Gaza and the 2006 war in Lebanon. It’s so deflating to remember that in the 80s and 90s, this place really did feel like a “vibrant democracy,” not the zombie-land it’s become.
Topics: Gaza flotilla, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Palestinians | 9 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | June 1, 2010
Peter Beinart offers the correct diagnosis, but the wrong cure
The blogosphere is buzzing about an essay by Peter Beinart in the New York Review of Books. Beinart convincingly denounces the Israel-right-or-wrong mantra of mainstream American Jewish organizations. He is justifiably worried about the future of “an American Zionist movement that does not even feign concern for Palestinian dignity.”
But for all of its many good points, his essay betrays a surprising ignorance of American Jewish organizational life. Like me, he wants more American Jews who identify with Israel to publicly distance themselves from the occupation and Israeli policies they find abhorrent. But he apparently believes that traditional American Jews groups and their leaders have the capacity to completely change their stripes and do what he recommends. According to Beinart:
The heads of AIPAC and the Presidents’ Conference should ask themselves what Israel’s leaders would have to do or say to make them scream “no.” After all, Lieberman is foreign minister; Effi Eitam [a Netanyahu appointee who has openly recommended ethnic cleansing] is touring American universities; settlements are growing at triple the rate of the Israeli population; half of Israeli Jewish high school students want Arabs barred from the Knesset. If the line has not yet been crossed, where is the line?
There is no line and there never will be. Asking AIPAC and the most powerful players in the Presidents’ Conference to publicly criticize Israeli policy is like asking a dog to play poker. Beinart is urging a violation of the laws of nature, of organizational DNA. AIPAC and the leaders of the Presidents Conference are–and probably always will be–guided by the credo that differences with Israel can be voiced behind closed doors but never in the open air.
Beinart concludes his essay by urging “American Jewish organizations” to bring to Hillel some of the young Israelis who are regularly protesting the expropriation of Arab housing in Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem. “What if this was the face of Zionism shown to America’s young?” That is a lovely idea but it is mystifying that he somehow expects the hidebound Jewish establishment to make it real.
He ignores the recent growth of a ready-made alternative that already exists, a decidedly pro-Israel movement that is willing to be critical of Israeli policies that perpetuate the occupation. I am referring to J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Ameinu and other groups that are apparently not on Beinart’s radar screen.
In Israel, he notes, ‘humane, universalistic Zionism does not wield power. To the contrary, it is gasping for air.” But he hasn’t noticed that it is very much alive in the American Jewish community, and there are organizations doing a good job of spreading the credo of this blog, i.e., progressive and pro-Israel need not be an oxymoron. To be sure, the organizations in this camp are still smaller than the groups in the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd. But the organized dovish camp is growing, and it is growing louder. Beinart’s smart essay correctly diagnoses the disease but desparately reaches for a cure among groups like the Presidents Conference and AIPAC, instead of identifying the real sources of hope and health in the American Jewish community.
Topics: AIPAC, Ameinu, American Jews, Americans for Peace Now, Israel, J Street, Peter Beinart | 7 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | May 19, 2010
Myths and facts about Jerusalem
Americans for Peace Now has posted an excellent summary of the situation in Jerusalem by Hagit Ofran, the head of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch program. It has been on their web site for awhile but is worth repeating here in the land of realistic doves. It is a scathing critique of the tenure of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, asserting that since his election in November 2008, he has been “one of the most faithful allies the East Jerusalem settlers could have…The intensification of settlement activities in East Jerusalem threatens the chances of implementing the two-state solution and might create an irreversible situation that would prevent a compromise in Jerusalem.”
Among the valuable tidbits are some responses to common arguments in defense of Israeli behavior in Jerusalem. These are the truths Eli Wiesel either doesn’t know or wilfully ignores:
• “Jews may build in East Jerusalem just as Arabs may build in West Jerusalem.”
The truth is it is practically impossible for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to buy or build houses in West Jerusalem. Most of the lands in Israel are “state lands” and, according to the Israel Land Administration (ILA), anyone who is not an Israeli citizen (or entitled to immigrate to Israel according to the Law of Return) must obtain a special ILA permit before they can buy or own state lands or apartments built on them (and such permits are issued only in most irregular cases).
• “We plan for Arabs too, not only for settlers.”
One of the first issues that Barkat addressed was the promotion of “The King’s Garden” plan for the construction of a Biblical park in the Bustan Neighborhood in Silwan. It was to be built on the ruins of dozens of Palestinian houses that were to be demolished because they were built without permits. The plan attracted great international criticism. Attempting to justify the vast demolitions, Barkat promised he would promote a grand construction plan for Palestinians near the Bustan park. At the same time, Barkat is trying to prevent the execution of an evacuation order issued against Jewish settlers who reside on Jonathan House in Silwan, while vowing again to promote a plan for the legalization of illegal Palestinian houses, including Jonathan House.
The truth is that even if these plans survive the long and expensive planning process and become valid, there is very little chance for the Palestinians to actually realize them due to difficulties associated with land ownership and many other economic and planning problems. Past experience shows that when the city attempts to build a settlement (in Ras al-Amud and earlier in Bet Orot in As-Sawane), it presents them as running parallel with plans for Arabs. Eventually, in the said case, the Jewish plan was realized, but the Palestinian plan was not.
• “House demolitions in East Jerusalem are about law-enforcement and are part of our struggle against illegal construction.”
The truth is that houses are built illegally in East Jerusalem as a direct result of the ongoing lack of plans for Palestinians and negligence of some one-third of the Jerusalem residents, whon one cannot describe them all as “construction criminals”. Since 1967, the government initiated the planning and construction of some 50,000 apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem, while less than 700 such units were initiated for the Palestinians (and only in the 1970′s).
You can find more myths and facts in an April 27th piece by APN’s Lara Friedman.
Topics: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem | 1 Comment »
By Dan Fleshler | May 11, 2010
Dialogue on the Berkeley divestment resolution
Dan Fleshler #1: Are you crazy? Why say anything positive about the Berkeley Student Senate divestment resolution? It’ll do you more harm than good.
Dan Fleshler #2: Sometimes one has to stand on one’s principles.
Dan #1: What difference would it make? Nobody reads your blog anymore.
Dan #2: There’s still a tiny following. Some people seem to care. My posts get Retweeted.
Dan #1: You’ll never get a job in the Jewish community again.
Dan #2: I can’t get a job in the community anyway.
Dan #1: Even J Street U and the New Israel Fund joined with other groups and signed a letter opposing the resolution. You’ll be jeopardizing ties that are important to you.
Dan #2: I want to believe the tent is big enough. I bet many people who participate in J Street’s political actions support this resolution, too. We can agree to disagree and still work together to support evenhanded American policy.
Dan #1: But you’ll be bolstering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. They heap abuse on everything related to Israel. Doesn’t that bother you?
Dan #2: I have a problem with a lot of the BDSers because they don’t accept the premise of a Jewish state. And it’s wrong to boycott all Israeli institutions, including those that include critics of the occupation. But this resolution doesn’t target Israel as a whole. It urges Berkeley to divest from two American companies “because of their military support of the occupation of the Palestinian territories.” And it urges the university to “examine its assets” to ensure it is not investing in companies that profit from the occupation. Well, why not give it a try? Nothing else has stopped Israeli settlement expansion or the kind of behavior Israel exhibited in Gaza, some of which was appalling.
Dan #1: But this resolution places all blame for the conflict on Israel. Its rhetoric could have demonstrated an understanding of the complexity of the situation, the fact that two sides have contributed mightily to this mess, but it did not do so. Israel is the only party that’s held accountable.
Dan #2: I would have written the resolution differently.
Dan #1: So why support a document if you’re not sure you agree with parts of it? This one also alleges that certain Israeli acts in Gaza were “war crimes.” Isn’t that inaccurate? Don’t you think the standard rules of war are inapplicable to many of the situations Israel faced, where combatants took shelter among civilians?
Dan #2 (pause for a deep deep breath): I am not sure if technically they were war crimes. But Israel put itself in a situation where a great many civilian casualties were inevitable. It didn’t have to make that choice. The whole enterprise was meant to send the message: “Ba’al ha bayit hishtageyah (the master of the house has gone crazy).” Children were killed as a result. They didn’t have to die.
Dan #1: It’s easy for you to say that from the comfort of your American armchair. In the real world, something had to be done to stop Hamas. C’mon. Be honest with yourself. You’re just trying to win friends on the left. You want them to think you’re “progressive.”
Dan #2: Maybe. But they won’t like you, and you’re also Dan Fleshler.
Dan #1: So you’re not really taking a stand. You’re just posting both points of view. Isn’t that the coward’s way out?
Dan #2: I don’t see anyone else posting both points of view. Ambivalent people deserve a voice, too.
Topics: Berkeley divestment, Gaza Strip, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Israeli settlements, J Street | 25 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | April 18, 2010
Obama should not be afraid of AIPAC
Despite recent tension with Israel, President Obama’s approval ratings have remained consistently high among American Jews, according to a new J Street poll. He was viewed favorably by 62% in March compared to 64% in October, 2009. That is true even though Americans as a whole are less enamored of him than they used to be. Other poll data show a rising confidence that the country is on the right track under Obama.
The poll was taken on March 17th through 19th, about a week after the firestorm that erupted when Vice President Biden’s trip to Israel was greeted by an announcement of settlement construction in East Jerusalem. Apparently none of the squabbling diminished most American Jews’ affection for Obama.
That should be encouraging news to the Administration as it tries to stop the folly of Israeli settlement construction and preserve the chance, however slim, for peace talks that accomplish something. Another tidbit from that poll should also be encouraging: when respondents were asked to choose the top two issues they will use to decide their 2010 Congressional votes, Israel ranked 7th. It was deemed to be less important than the economy, health care, the deficit and government spending, Social Security and Medicare, and terrorism and national security. Israel was given the same ranking as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only 10% of the respondents chose Israel as one of their top two issues.
No doubt Obama is hearing warnings about the political costs of even minor tussles with Israel. But while American Jews do have concerns about Israel and its security, their votes are based mainly on the same bread-and-butter issues that other Americans care about.
If health care reform is implemented without too many setbacks, the economy doesn’t do a nosedive and the lunatic fringe keeps vying for control of the Republican party, it seems likely that Obama will retain his popularity with Jewish voters if he stands firm on Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and elsewhere. More than 70% of American Jews say the U.S. should play an active role in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even if it means pressuring or publicly disagreeing with both sides, according to the J Street poll. And 55% agree the “U.S. did the right thing by strongly criticizing the Israeli announcement of new housing in East Jerusalem during the Vice President’s visit.”
Of course, the right-wing Jewish minority is making noise, and noise matters to presidents as well as members of Congress. Right now, MJ Rosenberg complains, AIPAC is pushing two Congressional letters urging that there be “no space” between American and Israeli policy. Obama should shrug off those letters and keep his eyes on the prize. Most American Jews will back him.
Topics: American foreign policy, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Israeli occupation, Israeli settlements, Middle East peace process | 22 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | March 26, 2010
U.S.-Israel relationship will survive, but what about Abbas?
This current tiff between Israel and the U.S. over settlements in East Jerusalem will probably blow over soon. The bonds between Israel and the U.S. are too tight to be unravelled. But Israel’s provocative behavior might be weakening Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Anyone who wants an end to this conflict should be furious about that possibility.
Abbas is trying to gain short-term diplomatic advantage by reneging on his participation in American-sponsored proximity talks, according to the
Christian Science Monitor and many other sources. But he and Fayyad must be alarmed at the long-term implications of this crisis. Haaretz notes that:
In one sense, PA leaders benefited from the construction plans: They scored a clear victory over Israel in the diplomatic arena. But they are also very aware of the long-term harm this incident could cause them among the Palestinian public: While most Palestinians are deeply skeptical that peace talks with Israel will produce any results, Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, has made the peace process its signature policy.
Thus they fear the new construction will further weaken Fatah’s status among the Palestinian public, to the benefit of the rival Hamas party, which opposes peace talks.
Fortunately, Palestinian security forces helped to keep a damper on violent protests in the territories during the Day of Rage called by Hamas yesterday. According to Ali Waked:
The alert declared Tuesday among Palestinian security forces, especially among the police forces deployed throughout Palestinian Authority cities, sends a clear message. The PA is not interested as of now in a conflict of any sort with Israel – not a “rock intifada,” not “popular resistance,” and certainly not armed conflict.
But every provocative action in Jerusalem strikes at the heart of the quiet, determined, and resolutely peaceful Palestinian state-building that Abbas and Fayyad are championing. If they lose the already limited, skeptical backing they have in the territories, then Israel will have Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and al Queda) to deal with. That is the biggest danger looming from Netanyahu’s inability or unwillingness to impose discipline on the right wingers in his government.
Topics: Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Israel, Israeli occupation, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians | 7 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | March 17, 2010
Boycott supporters: which side are you on?
The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement is growing, causing alarm in Israel and the American Jewish establishment. But the arguments being employed by the mainstream Jewish community are not likely to make headway with those who support BDS or the larger, more important group that is trying to decide whether to endorse it.
When contending with BDS, Israel’s adherents usually tick off dry, abstract political arguments to show why Israel is not comparable to South Africa under apartheid. But these arguments don’t matter to people toying with the BDS movement, because most of them are motivated by a sincere, urgent desire to end Palestinian suffering. They see that the experience of Palestinians under occupation is as bad as the experience of South African blacks. They also know that the Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated as –and feel like they are– second-class citizens. No long list of the rights enjoyed by Israeli Arabs can make a dent in that perception. Nor do they care if BDS is a veiled effort to “delegitimize” Israel. What matters to them is changing the Palestinians’ plight as quickly as possible.
There are arguments, however, that take potential BDS sympathizers on their own terms:
1) It will take much too long for the world to get behind an effective boycott of Israel. So even if BDS were the right thing to do (and I don’t think it is), it is thoroughly impractical.
There is a human rights emergency in the occupied territories and Palestinians need relief now. To be sure, diplomacy might not create a two-state solution or any other arrangement that might work, but at least it has a very slim chance to succeed in the next few years. There is no feasible way to garner enough support for BDS in the near future to have a tangible impact on Israel.
2) Boycotts almost never work. One could engage in a spirited, complicated debate about whether the South Africa boycott had a major impact on the Afrikaner establishment (some say it did, some say it didn’t), but even if it did, that would be the exception that would prove the rule. Boycotts didn’t change any policies in Cuba, Iraq or, for that matter, the Gaza Strip.
3) If you decide to back BDS, you will be taking sides in a bitter internal struggle within the Palestinian community. Are you really so certain of the merits of this cause that you are willing to insert yourself into this argument ?
On one side are those led by the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas and Salem Fayyad, who are trying to build the institutions of a state in preparation for an end to the occupation. This has involved hundreds of community development projects, the first steps towards creating a central bank and the work of internal Palestinian security services. Much of this progress requires working cooperatively with the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization have not called for a boycott of Israel, although the PA actively supports a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements.
On the other side are those who think that cooperation is collaboration, that the Palestinian Authority is selling its people down the river by settling for small bandages on the wounds of occupation. Much of the BDS movement is made up of this faction.
While the African National Congress clearly spoke in the name of the majority of black South Africans when it called for a boycott, the BDS movement does not have the same authority to speak for Palestinians. Even Hamas has not called for a boycott.
Referring to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), one of the most important BDS groups, David Hirsh of ENGAGE UK notes:
“PACBI was formed in order to manufacture a `call from the oppressed’ along the model of the ANC’s call. Far from wanting to boycott Israel, the PLO has, since the 1980s, wanted to normalize relations with Israel, and has encouraged links between Palestinians and Israelis, within civil society, academia, in trade and on a governmental level….
… Pacbi pretends that `the oppressed’ call for BDS with one voice. This is not true. In Palestine, as anywhere else, there are different opinions and different arguments – there is politics, there is disagreement and there are different ideas about the way forward.
4) The BDS movement has no use for promising, stirring joint cultural and economic projects in which ordinary Arabs and Jews are trying to figure out how to live together. For example, there is the cooperative work being done by people in the West Bank Palestinian town of Jenin and the Israeli region of Gilboa, which includes an industrial zone that will produce olive oil and other agricultural goods. The BDSers, presumably, would boycott those products.
PACBI hasn’t just called for a boycott of Israeli academics and cultural figures. As noted in a previous post, it also wants to quash efforts of Israeli Jews and Arabs to sit down, talk and find ways to bridge –or work together in spite of– the yawning gaps in their narratives.
So the BDS movement puts those Palestinians who want to cooperate with Israelis in a bad spot. That, in turn, takes away an important tool to persuade the Israeli electorate that its neighbors want peace, according to Ken Bob, president of Ameinu. He told me “You know how small Israel is. All of a sudden, people in your neighborhood know a kid who is part of the joint call center company in Jerusalem-Ramallah. People in the Gilboa Region tell their relatives about their joint project with Jenin…If there is a more successful BDS movement, Palestinians will perhaps feel like `OK, that tactic might work,’ let’s abandon the joint projects.’ I don’t think that will help the progress towards peace.”
Some diehard BDS supporters are quite willing to play favorites in this internal Palestinian debate. I suspect that many checking out this movement don’t even realize that they are being asked to take sides. That realization should give them pause.
Topics: BDS, boycott, Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians | 39 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | March 9, 2010
The “Heritage Trail” need not be exclusively Jewish
Netanyahu’s decision to include two religious sites in the West Bank in a national Heritage Trail has provoked a predictable political firestorm. This gesture, involving Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem and the burial place of the patriarchs in Hebron, is more than just another attempt by Netanyahu to placate his right wing. It also reveals something important about Israeli Jews’ attitudes towards other cultures both east and west of the Green Line.
Moshe Yaroni (the nom de plum of a left-wing American Jewish activist) has a valuable post on this point:
..The National Heritage list includes only Jewish sites. Sites which have significance to other faiths as well as Judaism are treated only in terms of their Jewish importance. So, what nation is it whose heritage is being claimed here? Obviously, the Jewish nation. That seems natural for the Jewish state, of course.
The problem is that while Israel may be the Jewish state, it is not only Jewish. One-fifth of its population is not Jewish, and they are a part of the state. This is not a small problem. As geographer Oren Yiftachel said, the exclusive nature of this Heritage Plan is “a small but very symbolic step to the effect that the dominant group is not capable of maturely including the other groups that live here… If the dominant group were surer of itself, then what would it care if they preserved the mosque in Be’er Sheva?”…
…The Jewish connection and Zionist claim to the “Land of Israel” or to the territory that was once known as “Palestine” is undeniably real. Yet no matter what historical period you look at, this was never an exclusively Jewish (or, in ancient days, Hebrew) land. What validated the Zionist claim was not that this land was exclusively “Jewish,” but that there was no other land that could credibly be connected to the Jews as a homeland…
…The issue at hand is very much the character of the Israeli state. Yiftachel’s point is crucial in its implications: Israel need not sacrifice its Jewish character nor its place as the worldwide center of Jewish self-determination and expression in order to embrace the other cultures that make up the fabric of the country. It can be both Jewish and multicultural.
Nor, for that matter, does Israel need to own all that is Jewish in the area to sustain itself. Without a doubt, any future that holds a workable permanent status agreement with the Palestinians cannot exclude Israeli-Jewish access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. One of the most difficult memories to overcome in the Israeli mind is the period from 1948-1967 when Jews could not get to the holiest and most meaningful places in Jerusalem under Jordanian rule.
If Israel needs international guarantees backed by the United States to ensure that access, then it should have them. Just as Israel is responsible to ensure that Christians can get to Nazareth or Tiberias (or, at this time, to the Via Dolorosa), the Palestinians must be responsible for Jewish access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Yiftachel’s point is that Israel is now a strong and established country and society. It must overcome its own insecurities and accept that the state is multicultural, with a Jewish majority that sets a tone for the country.
In the same ecumenical spirit, Avraham Burg has a suggestion:
Netanyahu could not even think of the possibility of cooperation in the Cave of the Patriarchs, because just like many others he cannot enjoy the site’s sanctity if local Muslims sanctify the graves of our shared forefathers…
What would happen, or more accurately, would anything bad happen had Israel’s prime minister called Palestine’s president and said: “My friend, at this time we are about to resume negotiations. Let’s do something symbolic and significant together. Let’s jointly renovate the Cave of the Patriarchs, the synagogue, and the mosque, and change the access and worship procedures at the site so that it will change from a controversial place to a symbol of peace, dialogue, and friendship in the spirit of Abraham, the forefather of both nations.”
Is this groundless? Is it impossible? Is it too foolish? I don’t think so. It’s a matter of psychology and religious zealotry that has taken over the political thought process of Israel’s prime minister too.
However, it’s not too late yet. Some people sanctify sites and stones. I respect their faith but this faith does not have to come at the expense of others or, heaven forbid, claim human life. It’s still possible to do it differently.
Topics: Benjamin Netanyahu, Hebron, Israel, Israeli Arabs | 72 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | February 27, 2010
Is there really “no one to talk to?” Maybe, maybe not…
The premise that there is no viable Palestinian partner is widely shared, conventional wisdom among the Israeli public and center-right pundits. At the same time, to the far-left and other bashers of all things Israeli (including some regular commentators on this humble blog) this premise is just an Israeli pretext for clinging to the status quo.
The truth, as usual, resides in the grey area which not enough people are willing to visit.
The impassioned Gideon Levy offers a brief, bitter explanation of why the notion that “Israel has no partner” is a myth:
Benjamin Netanyahu has already undergone his “historic turnabout,” he’s reportedly ready to discuss, certainly discuss, the ’67 borders, with territory swaps and security arrangements. Even the timetable has already been set – two years, of course it’s two years, it’s always two years, two years more. At the end, Israel’s ultimate triumph will be declared: There’s no partner. Again we’ll hear that the Palestinian president is “a chicken with no feathers” or that the Palestinian leaders are “a gang of terrorists,” and again we’ll hear that there’s no one to talk to.
There is no Palestinian partner, because there is no Israeli partner who is ready to take action. The day that Israel starts acting, together with the Palestinians, the partner will be there. Even Nelson Mandela wasn’t the Mandela we know until he was freed from prison and South Africa was placed in his hands. He too refused to give up armed resistance for decades, but when he was given a true opportunity, he followed a path of peace. The key was in the hands of F.W. de Clerk, not those of Mandela. Israel, too, has that key.
Broadly speaking, he’s on to something, because he shows that nothing is necessarily static, including conflicts that appear to be intractable. For the last 100 years or so, the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East has been characterized by reactions and counter-reactions, by violence and tough talk from one side that produced violence and tough talk from the other. If that cycle were broken, peace might have a fighting chance.
On the other hand, it requires a gigantic leap of faith to presume, as does Levy, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders can be compared to Nelson Mandela, and all it will take for them to renounce maximalist claims and armed struggle is for Israel to act as if it really did want meaningful compromise. In the mid-1990s, Hamas terrorism was meant –at least in part–to DISRUPT the peace process and curb Fatah’s power, and every time there seemed to be hope for meaningful compromise they sought to dash it. Have they changed their stripes now? I’ve heard and read hopeful lefties insisting that Hamas has evolved or at least not stayed the same, that there are Hamas “moderates” who can and must be cultivated. They might be right, but their claims are based mostly on wishful thinking and flimsy evidence, e.g., a few Hamas leaders, but certainly not those in every faction, have declared a willingness to live side by side with Israel if it retreats to its 1967 borders.
Even if Levy and his hopeful allies are correct in their assumptions about Hamas, there is the problem of the divided Palestinian polity. Israel needs one partner to talk to. It doesn’t have one. That is a rather predictable assertion, but in this case the conventional wisdom is true.
Nothing is going to be solved unless Hamas goes along with the solution. But every attempt by the Egyptians to unify the Palestinian parties has failed miserably. At present, the Fatah leadership does not want Israel to strengthen Hamas by recognizing it as a legitimate negotiating partner. If I’m not mistaken, whatever it says publicly about relieving Palestinian suffering, Fatah also does not want Israel to take the pressure off of Hamas by ending its boycott of the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, if the Palestinian factions were unified, somehow, the price would be negotiating positions that exacerbate already large differences with the Israelis over Jerusalem, the right of return and other matters.
DeKlerk knew who is opposite number was. He had Mandela and the ANC to contend with, although there were other factions among South African blacks. The Palestinian leadership has always been divided. It used to be factionalism based on rival clans. Now it is based on rival ideologies. If Gideon Levy could solve that one, I’d be completely in his corner. But, alas, he can’t. So I really don’t have a corner to stand in, other than the one that is shared with people who want the parties to do no harm, to stop taking steps that will render it impossible to reach an eventual solution.
Topics: Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians | 18 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | February 23, 2010
Americans for Peace Now: Knesset forms “flat earth society”
I have been waiting in vain for more than 25 years to hear a coherent answer from Israeli settlers and their supporters to the following questions:
“If Israel keeps expanding settlements and closes the door on a two-state solution, how do you propose to prevent it from becoming either a bi-national state or South Africa under apartheid? Is the answer that you are quite prepared to live forever in a non-democratic apartheid state (it isn’t there yet, although it’s rushing headlong in that direction) with permanently second class citizens who are deprived of the right to vote? If that is your answer, why don’t you admit it?”
Yet the lack of an answer apparently didn’t bother the Knesset members who recently set up a caucus against a two state solution, according to the latest Middle East Peace Report from Americans for Peace Now. The news item has one of the better titles in the history of the blogosphere: “Flat Earth Society.” Here it is, without further comment:
A Knesset caucus against a two-state solution was established earlier this month with strong support from many politicians considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“After the disengagement, one could have expected that the talk of creating a Palestinian state would be stricken off and that no one would try to take down [settlements] anymore,” Knesset member Arieh Eldad – a co-founder of the caucus and a member of the extremist National Union party – said at the opening session. “Once again, talk of two states is being heard and there’s a freeze decree,” he added.
His comments were echoed by Likud Minister Benny Begin. “The possibility of creating a foreign, sovereign independent state led by the PLO or Hamas goes against our right over the Land of Israel and our right to live securely,” he said.
The lobby was founded by Eldad and by Likud whip Zeev Elkin. The opening session was also attended by Likud ministers Begin and Moshe Kahlon, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, as well as Likud Knesset members Carmel Shama and Tzipi Hotovely. Kadima Knesset members Otniel Schneller and Zeev Bielski also attended.
The only two Likud ministers to not be present or send messages of support to the caucus were Netanyahu and Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor.
Settler leader Danny Dayan offered the caucus a clear charge: “The lobby’s role should be bringing Zionism to the residents of Israel through expansion so a Jewish sovereignty for the entire Land of Israel will grow from there.”
These statements stand in stark contrast with comments made by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Herziliya Conference. He said that if Israel fails to reach a peace deal to relinquish control of Palestinian population centers, it “will have to be either a binational or undemocratic [state].”
“If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state,” he added. (Ynet, 2/2/10; AP 2/3/10; Haaretz, 2/5/10)
Topics: Israel, Israeli occupation, Israeli settlements, Palestinians | 32 Comments »
By Dan Fleshler | February 16, 2010
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