Recently, Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren wrote an op-ed where he argued that the US and Israel should maintain their "special relationship" for all its benefits to the US.
Today (Thursday, April 28), the American Jewish Council ran a two page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal equally touting our "Special Relationship".
Stephen M. Walt, Harvard professor, begs to differ, as in this post. JRK
Whiff of DesperationMichael Oren's unconvincing argument for the U.S.-Israel special relationship.
BY STEPHEN M. WALT | APRIL 25, 2011
It is an ambassador's job to burnish his government's image; fidelity to the usual canons of logic and evidence are neither required nor expected. It is therefore unsurprising that Michael Oren's portrait of Israel as America's "ultimate ally" is a one-sided distortion of reality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ultimate Ally
By Michael Oren
Friends Forever?
By Jeffrey Goldberg
Our Kind of Realism
By Aluf Benn
The Long View
By Robert Satloff
The main targets of Oren's hasbara -- Hebrew for public diplomacy -- are some unnamed "realists," meaning anyone who questions the net benefits of America's so-called "special relationship" with Israel. All of the realists I know support Israel's existence and do not deny that the United States derives some modest benefits from its ties with the Jewish state. However, they point out that many of these benefits (e.g., trade, scientific exchange, etc.) do not require a "special relationship" -- one in which Israel gets extensive and unconditional economic, military, and diplomatic support -- and they maintain that the costs of the current "special relationship" outweigh the benefits. Unconditional U.S. support has also facilitated policies -- most notably settlement building -- that have undermined Israel's global standing and placed its long-term future in jeopardy. Accordingly, realists believe that a more normal relationship would be better for the United States and Israel alike.
Not surprisingly, Oren would prefer that the United States continue backing Israel to the hilt no matter what it does. His first line of argument is the odd suggestion that Americans have been Zionists ever since the Founding Fathers (i.e., even before modern Zionism existed). Some early U.S. leaders did have biblically inspired notions about "returning Jews to the Holy Land," but that fact tells us nothing about the proper relationship between the United States and Israel today. America's Founding Fathers also opposed colonialism, for example, so one might just as easily argue that they would oppose Israel's occupation of the West Bank and support the Palestinians' efforts to secure their own independence. George Washington also warned Americans to avoid "passionate attachments" to any foreign nations, in good part because he believed it would distort U.S. domestic politics and provide avenues for foreign influence. Thus, Oren's highly selective reading of past U.S. history offers little grounds for unconditional support today.
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Oren's second line of argument is the familiar claim that the United States and Israel share identical "democratic values." Yet this argument cannot explain why the United States gives Israel so much support, and gives it unconditionally. After all, there are many democracies in the world, but none has a special relationship with the United States like Israel does.
It is true that both states are formally democratic, but there are also fundamental differences between the two countries. The United States is a liberal democracy, where people of any race, religion, or ethnicity are supposed to enjoy equal rights. Israel, by contrast, was explicitly founded as a Jewish state, and non-Jews in Israel are second-class citizens both de jure and de facto. To take but one example, Palestinians who marry Israeli Jews are not permitted to become citizens of Israel themselves. This may make sense given Israel's self-definition, but it is wholly at odds with deep-rooted American values.
Just as importantly, Israel's democratic status is undermined by its imposition of a legal, administrative, and military regime in the occupied territories that denies the Palestinians there basic human rights, as well as by its prolonged, government-backed effort to colonize these conquered lands with Jewish settlers. Like all colonial enterprises, maintaining Israeli control of the occupied territories depends on heavy-handed coercion. Such behavior is at odds with core American values -- as U.S. administrations of both parties have said repeatedly, if not forcefully enough.
Oren's third line of argument is that Israel is a unique strategic asset, implying that unconditional support for Israel makes Americans safer at home. For example, he claims that Israel maintains stability in the eastern Mediterranean. But that is not true. Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 made the region less stable and led directly to the creation of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. The United States eventually had to send troops into Lebanon because Israel had created such a mess, and that decision led to a suicide attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in which 241 American servicemen died. Similarly, Israel's assault on Lebanon in 2006 killed more than a thousand Lebanese (many of them civilians), inflicted billions of dollars of property damage, undermined the U.S.-backed "Cedar Revolution," and enhanced Hezbollah's political influence within Lebanon. Finally, Israeli control of the occupied territories led directly to the first and second intifadas and the brutal 2008-2009 war on Gaza -- all of which created enormous popular blowback in the region. None of these events were in America's strategic interest, and they belie the claim that Israel is somehow bringing "stability" to the region.
Israel's limited strategic value is further underscored by its inability to contribute to a more crucial U.S. interest: access to oil in the Persian Gulf. Israel could not help preserve American access to oil after the Shah of Iran fell in 1979, so the United States had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force, which could not operate out of Israel. When the U.S. Navy was busy escorting oil tankers during the Iran-Iraq War, Israel did nothing to help, and it remained on the sidelines in the 1991 Gulf War as well. In fact, after Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel in a failed attempt to provoke it into joining the war and disrupting the Gulf War coalition, the United States had to divert military assets from that fight in order to protect Israel. As historian Bernard Lewis (a strong supporter of Israel) remarked afterward, "The change [in Israel's strategic value] was clearly manifested in the Gulf War.... Israel was not an asset, but an irrelevance -- some even said a nuisance."
Israel was also no help during the more recent war in Iraq. Although prominent Israeli politicians such as Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shimon Peres all endorsed toppling Saddam (and Barak and Netanyahu published op-eds in U.S. newspapers to help convince Americans to back the war), Israel was not an active member of the "coalition of the willing" and has remained on the sidelines for the past eight years while U.S. troops have been fighting and dying on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah.
In addition to overstating the benefits of the special relationship, Oren also ignores or denies its obvious costs. He is silent about Israel's extensive efforts to spy on the United States, which the U.S. Government Accountability Office has described as "the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally." And he says nothing about Israel's arms sales to Iran in the 1980s, its transfer of sensitive U.S. defense technology to potential adversaries such as China, or its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He makes much of the supposedly valuable intelligence information that Israel provides to the United States, but says nothing about Israel's tendency to manipulate Washington by hyping external threats. Since the early 1990s, for example, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that Iran was on the brink of getting a nuclear bomb, a series of false forecasts that were mostly intended to elicit greater support from the United States.
Oren also maintains that the special relationship between the United States and Israel has nothing to do with anti-Americanism in the Arab world or the motivations of terrorist groups like al Qaeda. In his view, there is no linkage whatsoever between U.S. support for Israel, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and the widespread hostility that the United States faces in the Arab and Islamic world. Not only does this claim fail the common-sense test, but making it also requires Oren to ignore a mountain of evidence to the contrary and leads him to make up stories that are simply untrue.
For example, Oren claims that "[Osama] bin Laden initially justified his attacks on America's profligacy and only later, after his setbacks in Afghanistan, linked them to Israel." This assertion is false. Bin Laden's first public statement intended for a wide audience -- released in December 1994 -- directly addressed the Palestinian issue. According to terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, the "most prominent grievance" in bin Laden's 1996 fatwa against the West was what he termed the "Zionist-Crusader alliance." In 1997, bin Laden told CNN's Peter Arnett, "We declared jihad against the U.S. government because ... it has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous, and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of [Palestine]." Needless to say, these and many similar statements predate 9/11 or the "setbacks" in Afghanistan to which Oren refers.
And bin Laden is hardly the only example. The 9/11 Commission reported that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." Other anti-American terrorists -- such as Ramzi Yousef, who led the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center -- have offered similar explanations for their anger toward the United States.
Despite Oren's denials, therefore, it is clear that one major cost of the special relationship is a heightened risk of anti-American terrorism. U.S. support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American extremism, of course, but it is an important one and it makes no sense to try to deny it.
There is also abundant survey evidence confirming that the special relationship is a powerful source of anti-American feeling throughout the Arab and Islamic world. In 2003, the State Department's Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy found that "Citizens in [Arab] countries are genuinely distressed at the plight of Palestinians and at the role they perceive the United States to be playing." In 2004, the Defense Science Board, an advisory group to the Pentagon, concluded that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states." As the 9/11 Commission acknowledged that same year, "it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world."
More recent surveys of Arab opinion confirm strong Arab disapproval of U.S. support for Israel and of U.S. handling of the Palestinian issue. According to the 2010 Brookings Institution/University of Maryland survey of public opinion in six Arab countries, the most frequently cited source of disappointment was the Obama administration's "Arab/Palestinian-Israeli policy." And when respondents were asked to name two countries they regarded as threatening, the top two answers were Israel (88 percent) and the United States (77 percent). It is perhaps worth noting that only 10 percent of respondents mentioned Iran.
Oren tries to explain this away by saying that Arab leaders are far more worried about Iran, and he quotes Saudi King Abdullah's request (as revealed by WikiLeaks) that the United States "cut off the head of the snake" (Iran). There is no question that some Arab leaders are concerned about Iran, but it does not follow that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is of little importance to them or to their subjects. As the Center for American Progress's Matthew Duss documented in a previous Foreign Policy article, the WikiLeaks cables contain abundant statements by Arab leaders highlighting the importance of the Palestinian issue to them, and U.S. officials are repeatedly told that ending the occupation is critical to improving America's position in the region.
Moreover, even if Iran is a growing concern, the combination of the special relationship and Israel's continued colonization of the West Bank makes that problem harder, not easier, to address. Iran exploits the Palestinian issue to put its Arab rivals on the defensive because Tehran knows that it resonates with Arab publics. By championing the Palestinian cause, Iran makes it more difficult for Arab governments to form a united front against Tehran or collaborate openly with the United States. That is one reason why both former Centcom commander David Petraeus and his successor, Gen. James Mattis, have told Congress that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a serious liability when trying to address major problems elsewhere in the region.
Oddly enough, Oren seems to be partially aware of this fact, though he fails to draw the right conclusions. He correctly notes that protests about Israel have been "[c]onspicuously absent" in the upheavals that have been convulsing Arab states over the past few months. He then warns "emerging Arab governments might in the future ... seek to gain legitimacy by harnessing anti-Israeli sentiment." But if the Palestinian issue did not resonate strongly with Arab publics, how could Arab rulers "gain legitimacy" by highlighting it?
The bottom line is that the special relationship with Israel makes it much more difficult to achieve America's main strategic aims in the Middle East. This is not to say that the challenges Washington faces would disappear if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were resolved or if the United States had a more normal relationship with Israel. That's a straw man to which few serious analysts subscribe. But there is little question that a just peace would make it much easier for Washington to pursue its other interests in the region.
Finally, Oren denies that the "so-called Israel Lobby" has anything to do with the current special relationship and claims it has no impact on U.S. support for the Jewish state or American policy more generally. To support this fantastic claim, he quotes longtime Mideast advisor Dennis Ross saying that the United States has never based its actions on what the "lobby" wanted or refrained from doing something because it thought groups in the lobby might be upset. To put it politely, this is fatuous. For one thing, Ross is hardly an objective source on this matter, having previously worked as counselor to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a spinoff of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and as chairman of the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank. Ross is just about the last person on the planet who is going to admit that the lobby exerts a powerful influence on U.S. Middle East policy, and the fact that Oren relies on his testimony tells you just how weak his argument is.
Furthermore, Ross's claim is belied by testimony from other equally experienced observers. For example, Ross's former deputy, Aaron David Miller, has described how the United States acted as "Israel's lawyer" during the Oslo peace process, a role that contributed significantly to Oslo's failure. Miller's subsequent book, The Much Too Promised Land, acknowledged the power of the lobby but said it was not all-powerful (another straw-man view that few serious analysts hold); yet he also admitted "those of us advising the secretary of state and the president were very sensitive to what the pro-Israel community was thinking and, when it came to considering ideas that Israel didn't like, too often engaged in a kind of preemptive self-censorship."
And that is why former U.S. President Bill Clinton referred to AIPAC as "better than anyone else lobbying in this town" and why former Rep. Lee Hamilton said, "There's no lobby group that matches it.... They're in a class by themselves." Barry Goldwater, the late Arizona senator, said he was "never put under greater pressure than by the Israeli lobby," and former Sen. Fritz Hollings once said, "You can't have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here [i.e., on Capitol Hill]."
Even a staunch defender of Israel like Alan Dershowitz admits, "My generation of Jews ... became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fund-raising effort in the history of democracy." I can understand why Oren wants to deny all of this; what I don't understand is why he thinks anyone will believe him.
Moreover, as John Mearsheimer and I documented in our book, "pro-Israel" groups in the United States use a variety of methods to encourage public support for Israel and make sure that the special relationship remains firmly in place. These tactics include making sure that individuals deemed insufficiently sympathetic to Israel do not get important government positions; attempting to silence, smear, or marginalize anyone who questions U.S. support for Israel or criticizes the policies of the Israeli government; and trying to shape discourse so that the pro-Israel arguments that Oren touts in his article are treated as received truths. Just ask Chas Freeman.
In the end, it is hard not to see Oren's article as a sign of desperation. A more open discourse about Israel is beginning to emerge in the United States, and that will gradually make it harder for American politicians to continue their craven subservience to the lobby. Furthermore, younger American Jews are less enchanted with an Israel that is drifting steadily rightward and whose political system is increasingly dysfunctional and ridden with scandal. Autocracies like Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt actively colluded with Israel, but future Arab leaders are likely to be more responsive to popular sentiment and less tolerant of Israel's brutal suppression of Palestinian rights. If the United States wants these countries' policies to be congenial to its core interests, it will have to make its own policies more congenial to Arab peoples, not just their rulers.
Given these trends, Israel ought to be doing everything in its power to help create a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza before it is too late. Obama was right when he said that a two-state solution was in "Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest." Unfortunately, the government that Oren serves is more interested in expanding settlements, and its vision of a Palestinian "state" is a set of disconnected and impoverished bantustans under full Israeli control. This is called apartheid, and it is contrary to the position of the past three U.S. presidents, not only because it is not in America's strategic interest, but also because it contradicts core American values.
As then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned in 2007, "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights," then "the state of Israel is finished." If this regrettable event were to occur, future historians will render a harsh verdict on anyone who helped derail or delay those peace efforts, including official propagandists like Ambassador Oren.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
More Nails in the Two--State Coffin
Dear Friend,
It's the long, sad, enduring tale of reality on the ground in Isr/Pal.
To those who think I'm always favoring the Palestinian "narrative", it is because underlying injustices continue to fester unattended, with US complicity. JRK
Israel's West Bank policies render the two-state solution DOA
Despite Netanyahu's rhetoric, the facts on the ground - illegal outposts, failure to abide by court rulings, unfettered settler activity- make peace a distant dream.
By Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz -- Wednesday - April 27, 2011
The very first meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama following the latter's assumption of the American presidency was preceded by a dramatic decision by Israel's Supreme Court. On May 18, 2009, the High Court of Justice issued gave the state 90 days to detail steps it had taken to dismantle six unauthorized outposts in the West Bank (Mitzpeh Lachish, Givat Asaf, Ramat Gilad, Ma'aleh Rehavam, Mitzpeh Yitzhar and Givat Haro'eh) .
As with all outposts, the houses, roads and infrastructure in these locations had all been constructed illegally, some on private Palestinian land. And, following a petition by the left-wing NGO Peace Now, the justices demanded that the state explain why it had not ousted these trespassers.
A few days later, Netanyahu announced in his Bar-Ilan speech that his "vision for peace includes two free peoples living in this small country with mutual respect as good neighbors." One can only assume that being a "good neighbor" doesn't for him mean the systematic theft of lands owned by Palestinian farmers, under the aegis of both the government and the Israel Defense Forces.
And yet, as Netanyahu's next meeting with Obama approaches, it turns out that the half dozen outposts featured in the petition are still standing. Civil and military authorities are spitting in the High Court's face, and the judges accept that spit as they would blessed rainfall. The outposts are a badge of shame for both the State of Israel and the High Court. There's no better emblem of the gap between the "two states for two peoples" rhetoric expressed by Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan and the policies that mark that solution as dead on arrival.
The 90 days the High Court gave the state in May 2009 are long past, with one delay following another. At the beginning of March (in other words, more than 20 months since the petition was filed), the State Prosecutor's Office submitted an affidavit to the High Court, saying that in a meeting convened by the prime minister in late February, attended by security officials and the attorney general, it was decided that "illegal construction on private land will be removed."
Regarding petition 7891/07, which deals with the said six outposts, the affidavit stated that, the relevant authorities "have been ordered to work toward the removal of illegal construction located on private land by the end of the year."
Because of this, the High Court decided on March 23 to give both the state and settlers more time to dispossess Palestinian land owners; the justices asked Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the commander of the IDF troops in the West Bank to submit a supplementary affidavit by November, in which they were to outline the steps required to execute the position expressed in the current affidavit.
Meanwhile, the West Bank continues to be managed by Wild West rules. Settlers invade private Palestinian land, the state provides infrastructure, the IDF acts as look-out, the Palestinians seek assistance from the High Court of Justice, the State Prosecutor's Office gets a time-out, and the Civil Administration explains that they're "working according to priorities." To illustrate the point, the residents of the village of Deir Jarir recently asked the High Court to evacuate Mitzpeh Kramim settlers, who they say invaded their land and are building new homes. While waiting for a court hearing on the matter, their attorney Hossam Younes presented updated photographs that indicated that construction was underway.
The Justice Ministry said in response that "the construction that appears in the photographs was not undertaken on the lots mentioned in the petition, but rather on adjacent ones." The ministry spokesman suggested that any questions regarding the "adjacent" lots should be directed to the Civil Administration. The Civil Administration, however, relayed that "supervision measures have recently been implemented regarding several structures in the Mitzpeh Kramim area." But the photographs indicate that new construction has been taking place in that area as well.
Love thy neighbor
Another instance of the rule of law and a shining example of how to be a good neighbor comes in the form of a High Court petition submitted by attorney Jiyat Nasr in the name of residents of the town of Daharia in the Hebron Hills, who claim that authorities have for years barred them from entering their own lands, which were annexed to the Sansana settlement.
In early April and after a four-year legal battle, the local Palestinians aided by attorney Kamar Mishraki-Asad from Rabbis for Human Rights won an exceptional legal victory: A settler from Susiya was ordered to evacuate their land and remove a vine he had planted there.
The evacuation order was met by a volley of rocks hurled by settlers at Palestinian shepherds. The squatter did not face criminal justice, the landowners were not compensated for the damage, none of the assailants were arrested, and the land is still off-limits to its lawful owners. The Civil Administration said that they were working on amending the edict which had prevented the Palestinians from entering the compound for the past four years.
All these "trifles" will probably be left out both of Obama's anticipated "pragmatic speech," and Netanyahu's "vision of peace," which he will present before the U.S. Congress in the near future.
Educating for peace
Following the massacre of the Fogel family of Itamar, Netanyahu again rejected Mahmoud Abbas' call to renew the work of a joint Israeli-Palestinian-American committee to end incitement. The reason? The Palestinian president lent his patronage to a ceremony to name a square after a suicide bomber.
During the recent Passover holiday, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, a government institution which works in conjunction with the Education Minister and receives state funding, proposed a new "trip for the whole family." On the agenda are "the two explosions that shook Jerusalem following action by Etzel at the train station and the King David Hotel." The July 1946 attack at the King David killed almost 100 people - 41 Arabs, 28 Britons, 17 Jews and five others.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-s-west-bank-policies-render-the-two-state-solution-doa-1.358426
It's the long, sad, enduring tale of reality on the ground in Isr/Pal.
To those who think I'm always favoring the Palestinian "narrative", it is because underlying injustices continue to fester unattended, with US complicity. JRK
Israel's West Bank policies render the two-state solution DOA
Despite Netanyahu's rhetoric, the facts on the ground - illegal outposts, failure to abide by court rulings, unfettered settler activity- make peace a distant dream.
By Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz -- Wednesday - April 27, 2011
The very first meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama following the latter's assumption of the American presidency was preceded by a dramatic decision by Israel's Supreme Court. On May 18, 2009, the High Court of Justice issued gave the state 90 days to detail steps it had taken to dismantle six unauthorized outposts in the West Bank (Mitzpeh Lachish, Givat Asaf, Ramat Gilad, Ma'aleh Rehavam, Mitzpeh Yitzhar and Givat Haro'eh) .
As with all outposts, the houses, roads and infrastructure in these locations had all been constructed illegally, some on private Palestinian land. And, following a petition by the left-wing NGO Peace Now, the justices demanded that the state explain why it had not ousted these trespassers.
A few days later, Netanyahu announced in his Bar-Ilan speech that his "vision for peace includes two free peoples living in this small country with mutual respect as good neighbors." One can only assume that being a "good neighbor" doesn't for him mean the systematic theft of lands owned by Palestinian farmers, under the aegis of both the government and the Israel Defense Forces.
And yet, as Netanyahu's next meeting with Obama approaches, it turns out that the half dozen outposts featured in the petition are still standing. Civil and military authorities are spitting in the High Court's face, and the judges accept that spit as they would blessed rainfall. The outposts are a badge of shame for both the State of Israel and the High Court. There's no better emblem of the gap between the "two states for two peoples" rhetoric expressed by Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan and the policies that mark that solution as dead on arrival.
The 90 days the High Court gave the state in May 2009 are long past, with one delay following another. At the beginning of March (in other words, more than 20 months since the petition was filed), the State Prosecutor's Office submitted an affidavit to the High Court, saying that in a meeting convened by the prime minister in late February, attended by security officials and the attorney general, it was decided that "illegal construction on private land will be removed."
Regarding petition 7891/07, which deals with the said six outposts, the affidavit stated that, the relevant authorities "have been ordered to work toward the removal of illegal construction located on private land by the end of the year."
Because of this, the High Court decided on March 23 to give both the state and settlers more time to dispossess Palestinian land owners; the justices asked Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the commander of the IDF troops in the West Bank to submit a supplementary affidavit by November, in which they were to outline the steps required to execute the position expressed in the current affidavit.
Meanwhile, the West Bank continues to be managed by Wild West rules. Settlers invade private Palestinian land, the state provides infrastructure, the IDF acts as look-out, the Palestinians seek assistance from the High Court of Justice, the State Prosecutor's Office gets a time-out, and the Civil Administration explains that they're "working according to priorities." To illustrate the point, the residents of the village of Deir Jarir recently asked the High Court to evacuate Mitzpeh Kramim settlers, who they say invaded their land and are building new homes. While waiting for a court hearing on the matter, their attorney Hossam Younes presented updated photographs that indicated that construction was underway.
The Justice Ministry said in response that "the construction that appears in the photographs was not undertaken on the lots mentioned in the petition, but rather on adjacent ones." The ministry spokesman suggested that any questions regarding the "adjacent" lots should be directed to the Civil Administration. The Civil Administration, however, relayed that "supervision measures have recently been implemented regarding several structures in the Mitzpeh Kramim area." But the photographs indicate that new construction has been taking place in that area as well.
Love thy neighbor
Another instance of the rule of law and a shining example of how to be a good neighbor comes in the form of a High Court petition submitted by attorney Jiyat Nasr in the name of residents of the town of Daharia in the Hebron Hills, who claim that authorities have for years barred them from entering their own lands, which were annexed to the Sansana settlement.
In early April and after a four-year legal battle, the local Palestinians aided by attorney Kamar Mishraki-Asad from Rabbis for Human Rights won an exceptional legal victory: A settler from Susiya was ordered to evacuate their land and remove a vine he had planted there.
The evacuation order was met by a volley of rocks hurled by settlers at Palestinian shepherds. The squatter did not face criminal justice, the landowners were not compensated for the damage, none of the assailants were arrested, and the land is still off-limits to its lawful owners. The Civil Administration said that they were working on amending the edict which had prevented the Palestinians from entering the compound for the past four years.
All these "trifles" will probably be left out both of Obama's anticipated "pragmatic speech," and Netanyahu's "vision of peace," which he will present before the U.S. Congress in the near future.
Educating for peace
Following the massacre of the Fogel family of Itamar, Netanyahu again rejected Mahmoud Abbas' call to renew the work of a joint Israeli-Palestinian-American committee to end incitement. The reason? The Palestinian president lent his patronage to a ceremony to name a square after a suicide bomber.
During the recent Passover holiday, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, a government institution which works in conjunction with the Education Minister and receives state funding, proposed a new "trip for the whole family." On the agenda are "the two explosions that shook Jerusalem following action by Etzel at the train station and the King David Hotel." The July 1946 attack at the King David killed almost 100 people - 41 Arabs, 28 Britons, 17 Jews and five others.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-s-west-bank-policies-render-the-two-state-solution-doa-1.358426
Monday, April 25, 2011
On Engaging President Obama
Dear Friend,
The US can no longer sit on the sidelines. Change in the ME is scary now and each country seems to require a different US involvement. American engagement with Isr/Pal should be constant, no dithering, no lack of clarity. The outlines of a "process" have long been known.
The political will has been missing from the US, to counter the strong political will of Likud and the settler-backed policies that drive the current administration in Israel.
The NY Times in their Easter editorial, calls for action. JRK (below)
On ENGAGING TEAM OBAMA
April 24, 2011
President Obama and the Peace Process President Obama began his presidency vowing to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace. He backed off in the face of both sides’ obstinacy and after a series of diplomatic missteps. Since then, the stalemate, and the mistrust, have only deepened, and it is clear that nothing good will happen until the United States fully engages.
It is time for Mr. Obama — alone or, better yet, in concert with Europe, Russia and the United Nations — to put a map and a deal on the table.
The outlines of a deal are no secret. They were first proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. But neither side has been willing to make the necessary concessions — on land swaps, how Jerusalem can be shared and how many displaced Palestinians can go home, or not. The Israelis need to know that their closest ally won’t enable more inaction. The Palestinians need to know they will have American support so long as their demands are realistic. Mr. Obama needs to speak up before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pre-empts the debate with what is certain to be an inferior proposal when he addresses a joint meeting of Congress next month.
Mr. Netanyahu has made some concessions, most notably giving Palestinians more control over their own security in the West Bank. But he has long insisted that the Palestinians aren’t serious about negotiating a final deal, and he is now hinting that he will unilaterally offer them an interim, step-by-step arrangement that will put off statehood to some undefined future.
He also has used the upheavals in the Middle East as one more excuse not to act, rather than a reason to reinforce Israel’s security with a durable peace deal.
Mr. Netanyahu — who is coming to speak at the invitation of Representative John Boehner, the House speaker — seems to think that the Republicans’ new power means he has carte blanche in Washington. So long as Mr. Obama sits on the sidelines, he will surely continue to believe that.
The address to Congress isn’t the only deadline Mr. Obama has to worry about. The Palestinians are threatening to ask the United Nations General Assembly — which admitted the state of Israel in 1949 — to declare a Palestinian state when it meets in September. Israel and the United States dismiss this as theater. But it is certain to pass, further isolating Israel. If Washington votes against it, as it inevitably will, it would further isolate this country.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his aides have been building their capacity to govern in the West Bank. But Mr. Abbas isn’t helping his cause by refusing to return to the negotiating table. He suspended talks last fall after Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement construction. Holding to his position only gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse not to seriously engage.
The status quo is not sustainable, as a recent surge of violence should make clear. And the options on the ground for creating a territorially coherent Palestinian state keep narrowing as Israel steps up settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel could oust the settlers — and will have to in certain areas. But the more settlers they let in, the harder it will be politically for any Israeli leader to cut a deal.
Last month, Robert Gates made the first visit to the West Bank by an American defense secretary to reinforce Washington’s commitment to a Palestinian state. But President Obama’s peace envoy, George Mitchell, who is supposed to move the process forward, hasn’t been to the region since December.
Mr. Gates was absolutely correct when he declared in Israel that despite the uncertainty caused by the upheaval in the Arab world, “there is a need and an opportunity for bold action to move toward a two-state solution.” He was talking to the Israelis and the Palestinians. We hope President Obama was listening closely, too.
The US can no longer sit on the sidelines. Change in the ME is scary now and each country seems to require a different US involvement. American engagement with Isr/Pal should be constant, no dithering, no lack of clarity. The outlines of a "process" have long been known.
The political will has been missing from the US, to counter the strong political will of Likud and the settler-backed policies that drive the current administration in Israel.
The NY Times in their Easter editorial, calls for action. JRK (below)
On ENGAGING TEAM OBAMA
April 24, 2011
President Obama and the Peace Process President Obama began his presidency vowing to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace. He backed off in the face of both sides’ obstinacy and after a series of diplomatic missteps. Since then, the stalemate, and the mistrust, have only deepened, and it is clear that nothing good will happen until the United States fully engages.
It is time for Mr. Obama — alone or, better yet, in concert with Europe, Russia and the United Nations — to put a map and a deal on the table.
The outlines of a deal are no secret. They were first proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. But neither side has been willing to make the necessary concessions — on land swaps, how Jerusalem can be shared and how many displaced Palestinians can go home, or not. The Israelis need to know that their closest ally won’t enable more inaction. The Palestinians need to know they will have American support so long as their demands are realistic. Mr. Obama needs to speak up before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pre-empts the debate with what is certain to be an inferior proposal when he addresses a joint meeting of Congress next month.
Mr. Netanyahu has made some concessions, most notably giving Palestinians more control over their own security in the West Bank. But he has long insisted that the Palestinians aren’t serious about negotiating a final deal, and he is now hinting that he will unilaterally offer them an interim, step-by-step arrangement that will put off statehood to some undefined future.
He also has used the upheavals in the Middle East as one more excuse not to act, rather than a reason to reinforce Israel’s security with a durable peace deal.
Mr. Netanyahu — who is coming to speak at the invitation of Representative John Boehner, the House speaker — seems to think that the Republicans’ new power means he has carte blanche in Washington. So long as Mr. Obama sits on the sidelines, he will surely continue to believe that.
The address to Congress isn’t the only deadline Mr. Obama has to worry about. The Palestinians are threatening to ask the United Nations General Assembly — which admitted the state of Israel in 1949 — to declare a Palestinian state when it meets in September. Israel and the United States dismiss this as theater. But it is certain to pass, further isolating Israel. If Washington votes against it, as it inevitably will, it would further isolate this country.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his aides have been building their capacity to govern in the West Bank. But Mr. Abbas isn’t helping his cause by refusing to return to the negotiating table. He suspended talks last fall after Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement construction. Holding to his position only gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse not to seriously engage.
The status quo is not sustainable, as a recent surge of violence should make clear. And the options on the ground for creating a territorially coherent Palestinian state keep narrowing as Israel steps up settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel could oust the settlers — and will have to in certain areas. But the more settlers they let in, the harder it will be politically for any Israeli leader to cut a deal.
Last month, Robert Gates made the first visit to the West Bank by an American defense secretary to reinforce Washington’s commitment to a Palestinian state. But President Obama’s peace envoy, George Mitchell, who is supposed to move the process forward, hasn’t been to the region since December.
Mr. Gates was absolutely correct when he declared in Israel that despite the uncertainty caused by the upheaval in the Arab world, “there is a need and an opportunity for bold action to move toward a two-state solution.” He was talking to the Israelis and the Palestinians. We hope President Obama was listening closely, too.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Jerusalem Christian Leaders Easter Message, 2011
Easter Message 2011 from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem
14 Apr 2011
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. Alleluia!
We, the Heads of Churches of the Holy City of Jerusalem bring you our greetings and our joy in the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Christians find their joy is secure in the hope of the promise of eternal life which our Lord has won for all who believe. However, when we in Jerusalem, the city of redemption, see the suffering of our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in our region our joy becomes more solemn. We find sadness competes with the joy of Easter as we witness the violence which has erupted in the face of peaceful demonstrations by people throughout the Arab world these past months.
We Christians are watching in prayer the developments in the Middle East. We also pray that the reforms would lead to modern civil society where freedom of expression, freedom of religion, human rights — including the rights of those who are considered being a minority in numbers — are respected. We call upon all people of faith and good will to pursue peace while at the same time we recognize that peace cannot be bought at the price of silence and submission to corruption and injustice.
The violence, when it erupts, reminds us that the cross of Christ is ever present for the faithful followers of the Prince of Peace. The crucifixion is an ongoing reality for many of our clergy and people who continue to seek to live with mutual understanding and co-operation with their neighbors.
We urge all Christians to pray for reconciliation among people in the Holy Land, where the deteriorating situation makes peace and justice seem further away than ever before. We ask the Churches around the world to stand with us in giving voice to those who are silenced, in breaking down walls that separate us from one another and in building bridges of goodwill between people.
We pray for the leaders of the nations, and for those who demonstrate for change, to use wisdom and their best judgment to serve the needs of their people and to promote peaceful solutions to change for a better future for all of God’s children. Our Lord died for the sins of the whole world that all people will see in his example how violence only leads to death and destruction. In his resurrection we experience his victory over violence and death and we embrace a vision of the future in which all people live together in harmony.
This vision gives us hope to renew our faith in the face of despair. Christians all over the world celebrate the victory over death which is ours as a gift from God who has compassion and mercy for all of his creation. We share our joy in the resurrection with you. The cross is ever before us day by day and the cross is empty. New life has come. Christ is risen. We are risen. Alleluia. Thanks be to God.
+Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch
+Patriarch Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch
+Patriarch Torkom II Manoogian, Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarch
+Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land
+Archbishop Anba Abraham, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, Jerusalem
+Archbishop Swerios Malki Murad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch
+Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey, Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarch
+Archbishop Abouna Matthias, Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarch
+Archbishop Paul Sayyah, Maronite Patriarchal Exarch
+Bishop Suheil Dawani, Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East
+Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
+Bishop Pierre Malki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
+Fr. Rafael Minassian, Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
14 Apr 2011
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. Alleluia!
We, the Heads of Churches of the Holy City of Jerusalem bring you our greetings and our joy in the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Christians find their joy is secure in the hope of the promise of eternal life which our Lord has won for all who believe. However, when we in Jerusalem, the city of redemption, see the suffering of our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in our region our joy becomes more solemn. We find sadness competes with the joy of Easter as we witness the violence which has erupted in the face of peaceful demonstrations by people throughout the Arab world these past months.
We Christians are watching in prayer the developments in the Middle East. We also pray that the reforms would lead to modern civil society where freedom of expression, freedom of religion, human rights — including the rights of those who are considered being a minority in numbers — are respected. We call upon all people of faith and good will to pursue peace while at the same time we recognize that peace cannot be bought at the price of silence and submission to corruption and injustice.
The violence, when it erupts, reminds us that the cross of Christ is ever present for the faithful followers of the Prince of Peace. The crucifixion is an ongoing reality for many of our clergy and people who continue to seek to live with mutual understanding and co-operation with their neighbors.
We urge all Christians to pray for reconciliation among people in the Holy Land, where the deteriorating situation makes peace and justice seem further away than ever before. We ask the Churches around the world to stand with us in giving voice to those who are silenced, in breaking down walls that separate us from one another and in building bridges of goodwill between people.
We pray for the leaders of the nations, and for those who demonstrate for change, to use wisdom and their best judgment to serve the needs of their people and to promote peaceful solutions to change for a better future for all of God’s children. Our Lord died for the sins of the whole world that all people will see in his example how violence only leads to death and destruction. In his resurrection we experience his victory over violence and death and we embrace a vision of the future in which all people live together in harmony.
This vision gives us hope to renew our faith in the face of despair. Christians all over the world celebrate the victory over death which is ours as a gift from God who has compassion and mercy for all of his creation. We share our joy in the resurrection with you. The cross is ever before us day by day and the cross is empty. New life has come. Christ is risen. We are risen. Alleluia. Thanks be to God.
+Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch
+Patriarch Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch
+Patriarch Torkom II Manoogian, Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarch
+Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land
+Archbishop Anba Abraham, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, Jerusalem
+Archbishop Swerios Malki Murad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch
+Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey, Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarch
+Archbishop Abouna Matthias, Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarch
+Archbishop Paul Sayyah, Maronite Patriarchal Exarch
+Bishop Suheil Dawani, Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East
+Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
+Bishop Pierre Malki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
+Fr. Rafael Minassian, Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
Friday, April 1, 2011
A New Palestine Movement: Young, Networked, and Nonviolent
A New Palestinian Movement: Young, Networked, Nonviolent
Joe Klein
Time
March 31, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2062308,00.html
Fadi Quran is the face of the new Middle East. He is 23, a graduate of Stanford University, with a double major in physics and international relations. He is a Palestinian who has returned home to start an alternative-energy company and see what he can do to help create a Palestinian state. He identifies with neither of the two preeminent Palestinian political factions, Hamas and Fatah. His allegiance is to the Facebook multitudes who orchestrated the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and who are organizing nonviolent protests throughout the region. In the Palestinian territories, the social-networking rebels call themselves the March 15 movement—and I would call Quran one of the leaders of the group except that it doesn't really have leaders yet. It is best described as a loose association of "bubbles," he says, that hasn't congealed. It launched relatively small, semisuccessful protests in the West Bank and Gaza on the aforementioned March 15; it is staging a small, ongoing vigil in the main square of Ramallah. It has plans for future nonviolent actions; it may or may not have the peaceful throngs to bring these off.
I meet with Quran and several other young Palestinians at the local Coca-Cola Bottling Co. headquarters in Ramallah, which tells you something important about this movement: we are not meeting in a mosque. I've known one of them, Fadi El-Salameen, for five years. He was an early volunteer for the Seeds of Peace program, which intermingled Palestinian and Israeli teenagers at a summer camp in Maine. In recent years, El-Salameen has spent much of his time in the U.S. and has achieved a certain prominence—he is quietly charismatic, a world-class networker, the sort of person who is invited to international conferences—but he is now spending more time at home in Hebron, organizing the March 15 movement in the West Bank's largest city. "I met some of the leaders of the Tahrir Square movement at a conference in Doha," he tells me. "They don't fit the usual profile of a 'youth leader.' They are low-key, well educated but not wealthy. They are figuring it out as they go along, trying to figure out what works." (See "Growing Up Palestinian in the Age of the Wall.")
The young Palestinians don't seem as pragmatic as all that; they are somewhere beyond wildly idealistic. "The goal is to liberate the minds of our people," says Najwan Berekdar, an Israeli-born Arab who is a women's-rights activist. "We want to get past all the old identities—Fatah, Hamas, religious, secular, Israeli and Palestinian Arab —and create a mass nonviolent movement." Berekdar has touched on an idea that might prove truly threatening to Israelis: a "one state" movement uniting Palestinians on both sides of the current border. But the young Palestinians have not focused on anything so specific. Their current political plan is to go back to the future—to achieve Palestinian unity by resurrecting and holding elections for a body called the Palestinian National Council, which took a backseat after the Oslo accords created the Palestinian Authority and its parliamentary component. This seems rather abstruse—the basic rule for people-power movements is, Organize first, bureaucratize later — and it would be easy to dismiss these young people as hopelessly naive but for two factors. The first is that they've seized the Palestinian version of a suddenly valuable international brand: the Tahrir Square revolution. "We cannot discount their importance," a prominent Israeli official told me. "Not after what happened in Egypt." (See "In the West Bank, An Economy Without a Nation.")
But equally important are their methods. Ever since Israel won control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian national movement has been defined by terrorism, intransigence and, until recently in the West Bank, corruption. It has never been known for dramatic acts of nonviolence. "If they'd been led by Gandhi rather than Yasser Arafat, they would have had a state 20 years ago," Kenneth Pollack of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution told me. Israeli officials acknowledge that the recent, peaceful economic and security reforms led by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have been the most effective tactics the Palestinians have ever used in trying to create a state. But they haven't gotten the Palestinians anywhere in their negotiations with the equally intransigent Israeli government. Jewish settlements continue to expand on Palestinian land. A mass nonviolent movement might tip the balance, especially if the world—including the Israeli public —began to see Palestinians as noble practitioners of passive resistance rather than as suicide bombers.
The Israeli leadership is as perplexed as everyone else about what the revolutionary tide in the region will bring. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he'd prefer dealing with democracies, but he isn't so sure that the Tahrir Square movement will yield a democracy in Egypt (and there are already indications that Egypt's new government will push harder for a Palestinian peace accord than Mubarak ever did). Netanyahu has wisely called for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, an idea that the Saudis—who seem to agree with the Israelis on practically everything these days—have also quietly endorsed. "If you can't get the young Egyptians involved in big public-works projects, like new housing, which is badly needed," an Israeli intelligence expert told me, "then they're back in the square for sure, only they'll be supporting the Muslim Brotherhood this time."
That seems unduly pessimistic. The Facebook rebels may have more influence on the suddenly antiquated Islamists than vice versa; if there is Shari'a, it will come with alternative-energy start-ups and a Coca-Cola chaser. "You have to wonder what sort of influence this revolution has had on Hamas," a Palestinian Christian said to me. "Are they watching al-Jazeera and seeing nonviolence succeed where terrorism has failed?" (See "In the West Bank: A Visit With a Soon-To-Be Ex-Negotiator.")
The Israelis assume not, which seems a safe assumption: Hamas rule in Gaza is going well, despite the Israeli boycott. "The Hamas military wing is making money off the smuggling from the tunnels [from Egypt into Gaza]," a West Bank businessman tells me. "They sell my product for twice my price. And yet the standard of living is rising in Gaza." In fact, Hamas seems more secure right now than Fatah, despite the economic successes in the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been wounded by the leak to al-Jazeera of private memos that showed Palestinian negotiators making what seemed to be major concessions to the Israelis. In order to restore some of his credibility, Abbas has been reaching out to Hamas, raising the prospect of a reconciliation—and destroying any slim hope of an accord with the Israelis. "Abbas has to choose," a Netanyahu aide told me, "between Hamas and us." (Comment on this story.)
So the stalemate continues—with one exception: the March 15 movement and the rush of history in the region. The young activists may be preoccupied by the chimera of Palestinian unity at the moment, but what happens if they turn their full attention to the Israeli occupation? What happens if they begin to organize marches to protest the near daily outrages perpetrated by Jewish settlers? What if they stage sit-down strikes to open roads that are used by settlers but closed to Palestinians? What if they march 10,000 strong against a settlement that is refusing Palestinians access to a traditional water supply? "If it is nonviolent, then that means, by definition, it is civilized," an Israeli official said. "We have no problem with that." But what if the Palestinians are nonviolent and the Jewish settlers are not? "I think about the dogs unleashed on Martin Luther King in Birmingham," Quran says. "I think about the beatings. That's what it took for Americans to see the justice of his cause. We will be risking our lives, but that is what it takes. I only hope that we're not too well educated to be courageous."
Joe Klein
Time
March 31, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2062308,00.html
Fadi Quran is the face of the new Middle East. He is 23, a graduate of Stanford University, with a double major in physics and international relations. He is a Palestinian who has returned home to start an alternative-energy company and see what he can do to help create a Palestinian state. He identifies with neither of the two preeminent Palestinian political factions, Hamas and Fatah. His allegiance is to the Facebook multitudes who orchestrated the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and who are organizing nonviolent protests throughout the region. In the Palestinian territories, the social-networking rebels call themselves the March 15 movement—and I would call Quran one of the leaders of the group except that it doesn't really have leaders yet. It is best described as a loose association of "bubbles," he says, that hasn't congealed. It launched relatively small, semisuccessful protests in the West Bank and Gaza on the aforementioned March 15; it is staging a small, ongoing vigil in the main square of Ramallah. It has plans for future nonviolent actions; it may or may not have the peaceful throngs to bring these off.
I meet with Quran and several other young Palestinians at the local Coca-Cola Bottling Co. headquarters in Ramallah, which tells you something important about this movement: we are not meeting in a mosque. I've known one of them, Fadi El-Salameen, for five years. He was an early volunteer for the Seeds of Peace program, which intermingled Palestinian and Israeli teenagers at a summer camp in Maine. In recent years, El-Salameen has spent much of his time in the U.S. and has achieved a certain prominence—he is quietly charismatic, a world-class networker, the sort of person who is invited to international conferences—but he is now spending more time at home in Hebron, organizing the March 15 movement in the West Bank's largest city. "I met some of the leaders of the Tahrir Square movement at a conference in Doha," he tells me. "They don't fit the usual profile of a 'youth leader.' They are low-key, well educated but not wealthy. They are figuring it out as they go along, trying to figure out what works." (See "Growing Up Palestinian in the Age of the Wall.")
The young Palestinians don't seem as pragmatic as all that; they are somewhere beyond wildly idealistic. "The goal is to liberate the minds of our people," says Najwan Berekdar, an Israeli-born Arab who is a women's-rights activist. "We want to get past all the old identities—Fatah, Hamas, religious, secular, Israeli and Palestinian Arab —and create a mass nonviolent movement." Berekdar has touched on an idea that might prove truly threatening to Israelis: a "one state" movement uniting Palestinians on both sides of the current border. But the young Palestinians have not focused on anything so specific. Their current political plan is to go back to the future—to achieve Palestinian unity by resurrecting and holding elections for a body called the Palestinian National Council, which took a backseat after the Oslo accords created the Palestinian Authority and its parliamentary component. This seems rather abstruse—the basic rule for people-power movements is, Organize first, bureaucratize later — and it would be easy to dismiss these young people as hopelessly naive but for two factors. The first is that they've seized the Palestinian version of a suddenly valuable international brand: the Tahrir Square revolution. "We cannot discount their importance," a prominent Israeli official told me. "Not after what happened in Egypt." (See "In the West Bank, An Economy Without a Nation.")
But equally important are their methods. Ever since Israel won control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian national movement has been defined by terrorism, intransigence and, until recently in the West Bank, corruption. It has never been known for dramatic acts of nonviolence. "If they'd been led by Gandhi rather than Yasser Arafat, they would have had a state 20 years ago," Kenneth Pollack of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution told me. Israeli officials acknowledge that the recent, peaceful economic and security reforms led by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have been the most effective tactics the Palestinians have ever used in trying to create a state. But they haven't gotten the Palestinians anywhere in their negotiations with the equally intransigent Israeli government. Jewish settlements continue to expand on Palestinian land. A mass nonviolent movement might tip the balance, especially if the world—including the Israeli public —began to see Palestinians as noble practitioners of passive resistance rather than as suicide bombers.
The Israeli leadership is as perplexed as everyone else about what the revolutionary tide in the region will bring. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he'd prefer dealing with democracies, but he isn't so sure that the Tahrir Square movement will yield a democracy in Egypt (and there are already indications that Egypt's new government will push harder for a Palestinian peace accord than Mubarak ever did). Netanyahu has wisely called for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, an idea that the Saudis—who seem to agree with the Israelis on practically everything these days—have also quietly endorsed. "If you can't get the young Egyptians involved in big public-works projects, like new housing, which is badly needed," an Israeli intelligence expert told me, "then they're back in the square for sure, only they'll be supporting the Muslim Brotherhood this time."
That seems unduly pessimistic. The Facebook rebels may have more influence on the suddenly antiquated Islamists than vice versa; if there is Shari'a, it will come with alternative-energy start-ups and a Coca-Cola chaser. "You have to wonder what sort of influence this revolution has had on Hamas," a Palestinian Christian said to me. "Are they watching al-Jazeera and seeing nonviolence succeed where terrorism has failed?" (See "In the West Bank: A Visit With a Soon-To-Be Ex-Negotiator.")
The Israelis assume not, which seems a safe assumption: Hamas rule in Gaza is going well, despite the Israeli boycott. "The Hamas military wing is making money off the smuggling from the tunnels [from Egypt into Gaza]," a West Bank businessman tells me. "They sell my product for twice my price. And yet the standard of living is rising in Gaza." In fact, Hamas seems more secure right now than Fatah, despite the economic successes in the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been wounded by the leak to al-Jazeera of private memos that showed Palestinian negotiators making what seemed to be major concessions to the Israelis. In order to restore some of his credibility, Abbas has been reaching out to Hamas, raising the prospect of a reconciliation—and destroying any slim hope of an accord with the Israelis. "Abbas has to choose," a Netanyahu aide told me, "between Hamas and us." (Comment on this story.)
So the stalemate continues—with one exception: the March 15 movement and the rush of history in the region. The young activists may be preoccupied by the chimera of Palestinian unity at the moment, but what happens if they turn their full attention to the Israeli occupation? What happens if they begin to organize marches to protest the near daily outrages perpetrated by Jewish settlers? What if they stage sit-down strikes to open roads that are used by settlers but closed to Palestinians? What if they march 10,000 strong against a settlement that is refusing Palestinians access to a traditional water supply? "If it is nonviolent, then that means, by definition, it is civilized," an Israeli official said. "We have no problem with that." But what if the Palestinians are nonviolent and the Jewish settlers are not? "I think about the dogs unleashed on Martin Luther King in Birmingham," Quran says. "I think about the beatings. That's what it took for Americans to see the justice of his cause. We will be risking our lives, but that is what it takes. I only hope that we're not too well educated to be courageous."
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Jewish Voice for Peace Statement on growing violence
Dear Friend,
I'm sending you this statement at the request of Cecile Surasky, and the Jewish Voice for Peace. It addresses the growing violence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Our hope is that it will inspire heartfelt conversation, debates and questionings -- and most of all, changes in behavior, on all sides, among all persons. JRK
From Gaza to Jerusalem: JVP Statement on the Escalation of Violence, March 25, 2011
Any act of violence, especially one against civilians, marks a profound failure of human imagination and causes a deep and abiding trauma for all involved. In mourning the nine lives lost in Gaza and the one life lost in Jerusalem this week, we reject the pattern of condemning the deaths of Israelis while ignoring the deaths of Palestinians. We do not discriminate. One life lost is one life too many--whether Palestinian or Israeli.
Within the context of 44 years of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, in the past two years (January 31, 2009 to January 31, 2011, starting just after Operation Cast Lead), over a thousand Palestinians have been made homeless by home demolitions, hundreds have been unlawfully detained, and over 150 men, women and children have been killed by the IDF and settlers, according to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem.(1) [numbers in parentheses are referenced below], jrk
Many acres of Palestinian land have been taken and orchards uprooted by armed settlers. Countless hours have been lost at checkpoints, often fruitlessly, while Palestinians attempted to get medical care, jobs, and access to education. One and a half million Gazans have been living with a limited food supply, lack of electricity and dangerously toxic sewage.
This is occupation: daily, persistent acts of structural violence. All in the service of a government that constantly expands illegal Israeli settlements on land that rightfully belongs to Palestinians.
These acts don't reach our headlines because they are so habitual, so we learn not to see them. But Palestinians live them and their profound consequences everyday, and we must keep that in mind, even as we ponder the terrible events of the past few weeks:(2) A person or persons, (we don't know who), bombed a bus stop in Jerusalem, injuring 30 and killing 1 Israeli civilian; An Israeli bombing killed 3 children and an older man in Gaza; A person or persons, (we don't know who), murdered 5 members of a family, including three children, in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; The Israeli government suddenly tightened the siege of Gaza and escalated military attacks, killing a total of 11 Palestinians and injuring more than 40 since mid-March;(3) Palestinians fired over 50 shells and rockets from Gaza into civilian areas in southern Israel.
These terrible acts of violence remind us that to end the Israeli occupation, our best hope is supporting the inspiring nonviolent Palestinian movement for change, in the form of unarmed protests every Friday in places like Bil’in, Ni'lin, Sheikh Jarrah, and the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. This is a movement that respects life, that is part and parcel of the nonviolent democratic people's movements we have been inspired by throughout the Arab world, that welcomes the solidarity and support of Israeli and international believers in equality and universal human rights.
This is a movement that fundamentally subverts the logic of armies, revenge-fueled “price tags”, and armed struggle. And it is a movement that may well do what no other government to date has done-- pressure Israel to be accountable to international law and therefore help create conditions for truly meaningful negotiations.
Because it is so powerful, it is no surprise that the right to engage in nonviolent resistance, a foundational component of any functioning democracy, is under attack in Israel. Human rights activists are being detained or imprisoned. Bills to criminalize the BDS movement, or harass human rights organizations, are working their way through the Knesset.
Just this week:
The very act of publicly commemorating the Nakba, a crucial nonviolent act of Palestinian remembrance, was essentially criminalized in Israel by the Knesset.(4)The Knesset also passed a law allowing small communities in the Galilee and Negev to discriminate against anyone wanting to reside there who does not fit in with the community’s “socio-cultural” character.(5) The Knesset also held hearings to assess whether the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street was sufficiently pro-Israel.(6)
The IDF announced a new military intelligence-gathering unit solely dedicated to monitoring international left-wing peace and human rights groups that the army sees as a threat to Israel. The department will work closely with government ministries.(7)
Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, Head of the nonviolent Nabi Saleh Popular Committee, and beat his wife and daughter while arresting him presumably on charges of "incitement" and "organizing illegal demonstrations."(8)
As the Israeli government increasingly deploys anti-democratic measures and military repression, we at Jewish Voice for Peace are redoubling our efforts to support the best hope: a nonviolent Palestinian-led resistance movement in which we all work together to nurture life, justice and equality. We invite you to join the movement.
(1) B'tselem: Fatalities after operation "Cast Lead"
(2) The Guardian, March 23: Israeli-Palestinian tensions: a timeline
(3) Alternative Information Center, March 23: Israel's Military Escalation in Gaza
(4) Jerusalem Post, March 23: Nakba Bill passes Knesset in third reading
(5) +972 Magazine, March 22: Knesset passes segregation bill
(6) New York Times, March 24: U.S. Group Stirs Debate On Being "Pro-Israel"
(7) Ha'aretz, March 21: Military Intelligence monitoring foreign left-wing organizations
and +972 Magazine, March 22: Military Intelligence monitors "de-legitimization"
(8) Popular Struggle, March 24, 2011: Israeli Soldiers arrest Bassem Tamimi, Coordinator of Nabi Saleh Popular Committee
I'm sending you this statement at the request of Cecile Surasky, and the Jewish Voice for Peace. It addresses the growing violence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Our hope is that it will inspire heartfelt conversation, debates and questionings -- and most of all, changes in behavior, on all sides, among all persons. JRK
From Gaza to Jerusalem: JVP Statement on the Escalation of Violence, March 25, 2011
Any act of violence, especially one against civilians, marks a profound failure of human imagination and causes a deep and abiding trauma for all involved. In mourning the nine lives lost in Gaza and the one life lost in Jerusalem this week, we reject the pattern of condemning the deaths of Israelis while ignoring the deaths of Palestinians. We do not discriminate. One life lost is one life too many--whether Palestinian or Israeli.
Within the context of 44 years of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, in the past two years (January 31, 2009 to January 31, 2011, starting just after Operation Cast Lead), over a thousand Palestinians have been made homeless by home demolitions, hundreds have been unlawfully detained, and over 150 men, women and children have been killed by the IDF and settlers, according to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem.(1) [numbers in parentheses are referenced below], jrk
Many acres of Palestinian land have been taken and orchards uprooted by armed settlers. Countless hours have been lost at checkpoints, often fruitlessly, while Palestinians attempted to get medical care, jobs, and access to education. One and a half million Gazans have been living with a limited food supply, lack of electricity and dangerously toxic sewage.
This is occupation: daily, persistent acts of structural violence. All in the service of a government that constantly expands illegal Israeli settlements on land that rightfully belongs to Palestinians.
These acts don't reach our headlines because they are so habitual, so we learn not to see them. But Palestinians live them and their profound consequences everyday, and we must keep that in mind, even as we ponder the terrible events of the past few weeks:(2) A person or persons, (we don't know who), bombed a bus stop in Jerusalem, injuring 30 and killing 1 Israeli civilian; An Israeli bombing killed 3 children and an older man in Gaza; A person or persons, (we don't know who), murdered 5 members of a family, including three children, in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; The Israeli government suddenly tightened the siege of Gaza and escalated military attacks, killing a total of 11 Palestinians and injuring more than 40 since mid-March;(3) Palestinians fired over 50 shells and rockets from Gaza into civilian areas in southern Israel.
These terrible acts of violence remind us that to end the Israeli occupation, our best hope is supporting the inspiring nonviolent Palestinian movement for change, in the form of unarmed protests every Friday in places like Bil’in, Ni'lin, Sheikh Jarrah, and the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. This is a movement that respects life, that is part and parcel of the nonviolent democratic people's movements we have been inspired by throughout the Arab world, that welcomes the solidarity and support of Israeli and international believers in equality and universal human rights.
This is a movement that fundamentally subverts the logic of armies, revenge-fueled “price tags”, and armed struggle. And it is a movement that may well do what no other government to date has done-- pressure Israel to be accountable to international law and therefore help create conditions for truly meaningful negotiations.
Because it is so powerful, it is no surprise that the right to engage in nonviolent resistance, a foundational component of any functioning democracy, is under attack in Israel. Human rights activists are being detained or imprisoned. Bills to criminalize the BDS movement, or harass human rights organizations, are working their way through the Knesset.
Just this week:
The very act of publicly commemorating the Nakba, a crucial nonviolent act of Palestinian remembrance, was essentially criminalized in Israel by the Knesset.(4)The Knesset also passed a law allowing small communities in the Galilee and Negev to discriminate against anyone wanting to reside there who does not fit in with the community’s “socio-cultural” character.(5) The Knesset also held hearings to assess whether the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street was sufficiently pro-Israel.(6)
The IDF announced a new military intelligence-gathering unit solely dedicated to monitoring international left-wing peace and human rights groups that the army sees as a threat to Israel. The department will work closely with government ministries.(7)
Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, Head of the nonviolent Nabi Saleh Popular Committee, and beat his wife and daughter while arresting him presumably on charges of "incitement" and "organizing illegal demonstrations."(8)
As the Israeli government increasingly deploys anti-democratic measures and military repression, we at Jewish Voice for Peace are redoubling our efforts to support the best hope: a nonviolent Palestinian-led resistance movement in which we all work together to nurture life, justice and equality. We invite you to join the movement.
(1) B'tselem: Fatalities after operation "Cast Lead"
(2) The Guardian, March 23: Israeli-Palestinian tensions: a timeline
(3) Alternative Information Center, March 23: Israel's Military Escalation in Gaza
(4) Jerusalem Post, March 23: Nakba Bill passes Knesset in third reading
(5) +972 Magazine, March 22: Knesset passes segregation bill
(6) New York Times, March 24: U.S. Group Stirs Debate On Being "Pro-Israel"
(7) Ha'aretz, March 21: Military Intelligence monitoring foreign left-wing organizations
and +972 Magazine, March 22: Military Intelligence monitors "de-legitimization"
(8) Popular Struggle, March 24, 2011: Israeli Soldiers arrest Bassem Tamimi, Coordinator of Nabi Saleh Popular Committee
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Jeff Halper on the Future of Isr/Pal
A Turning Point in Israel's History?
Talking With Jeff Halper About the Future of Palestine
By GABRIEL HERSHMAN
http://www.counterpunch.org/hershman03222011.html
The West Bank would empty of settlers overnight if they were asked to choose between American and Israeli citizenship, says activist Jeff Halper, a powerful exponent of the Israeli government's moral bankruptcy.
Mention the S.H.I.T list - the Masada 2000 Kahanists' "Self-Hating Israel-Threatening" Jews list - that mysteriously sprang up several years ago and Jeff Halper, founder and co-ordinator of the Jerusalem-based Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) beams with pride. He says the compilers have done a great job.
Like others on the Israeli Left, and indeed Jews everywhere critical of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, to be a S.H.I.T is an honour. Not that Halper would agree with the appellation, of course. He identifies himself as a "cultural Zionist", but he thinks those included are upstanding citizens.
To Halper and others like him, the fanatical zealots behind the list use the anti-Semitic label to ward off any barbs aimed by gentiles at Israel. So it's only natural that they would brand Jews like him - and to name but a few - veteran Haaretz journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass - as self-hating Jews.
Not that Halper is your standard lefty; he surprises me by being able to discern anti-Semitism behind the most fervent American Christian Zionists. He's also got a good nose for sussing out a Jew-hating gentile fascist masquerading as a left-wing anti-Zionist ex-Jew. Or borderline anti-Semitism in a far-left, pro-Palestinian former British MP. No prizes for guessing who!
Self-fulfilling prophesy?
The discourse surrounding Israel and anti-Semitism is like an endless shaggy dog story. The Right says the world is against us, the Jews are the eternal victims of attempts by racist Europeans or fanaticised Arabs to hound us into the sea or gas chambers. Get out of Europe, say the European Nazis. Get out of Palestine, says Helen Thomas. So, you see, we're not wanted anywhere!
The Left says Israel has perpetuated anti-Semitism - yes, indeed the world is against us, but that's because Israel has flouted international resolutions, persisted in its illegal occupation and persuaded the more extreme elements of international Jewry to finance its agenda. But we only need Jewish nationalism because of anti-Semitism, says the Right, so we need our own state and screw the rest.
Back to the S.H.I.T list. Halper, 64, a diminutive but well built bearded bear of a man has obviously done some investigations. He is passionate about the damage done to Palestinians but seems unfazed at his own prominence on the list. His own thumb nail portrait is particularly colourful. "This American-born anti-Israel agitator concerns himself and ICAHD only incidentally with house demolition. Their primary concern is the demolition of Israel," says the site, which charmingly refers to him as a "sick, self-hating kike". This for a man who emigrated to Israel more than 30 years ago. Actually, in the flesh, Halper comes across as an engaging and delightful kind of Jewish Santa. Warm-hearted but not especially sensitive about himself, Halper, a child of the civil rights movement, is now the veteran of countless attempts to salvage Palestinian homes, sit-ins and arrests.
Halper, slightly tongue-in-cheek, is at pains to praise the research.
"We use that list. If I want a research list of 5000 critical people, it's great," he says, while quibbling with the inclusion of some, like former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk. For Halper, it seems, to be a S.H.I.T (in this context) is a compliment.
So who bears the credit for this work of scholarship, some of which carries not only a potted history of the "worst" S.H.I.Ts but also some imaginative imagery? Some, for example, have close-ups of cavities, no doubt in an attempt to show that it's not only the bearer's gums that are diseased.
"I'm sure there was somebody in Boston because the Boston people have in-depth profiles about their families," says Halper from his office in central Jerusalem. "There's a right-wing group - called Camera - with Alan Dershowitz on its board, based in Boston. They carry a picture of me, sometimes it's just a name, but the Boston people have extensive biographies attached to their names."
Israel-haters, Jew-haters and Armageddon-lovers.
In Israel - and indeed the world at large - the term "the Left" has now become synonymous with hostility to Israel and its actions. The far Left, in particular, is anti-colonialist, anti-American, anti-nationalist and anti the "Zionist entity", viewing it as a client state of evil big brother capitalist America. But, as Halper points out, in the US the Republican Party is traditionally the most hostile to Israel.
"Jews don't vote Republican. George HW Bush, together with (former secretary of state) James Baker, withheld 10 billion dollars of oil guarantees. George W Bush, on the other hand, was a born again Christian and 100 degrees different fom his father on Israel. The whole rise of the neo-cons and the Christian Right in the US - the likes of Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson - came after Bush the father. Bush Senior was the old Republican right-wing, like Nixon and Goldwater. You can be critical of Israel for different reasons. The Christian Zionists are anti-Semites; they don't like Jews but they think that Israel has to be strong and get into a war for Armageddon to come. So they use Israel. They're not pro-Israel, but pro the Messiah coming and they need Israel for that. That's what motivates them, not love of Jews."
No other country in the world has such a complex dynamic surrounding it as Israel as Halper's (undeniably) accurate appraisal of Israel's weird coalition of friends and foes attests to.
"You can be critical of Israel and not be anti-Semitic. You can be critical of Israel and anti-Semitic - like Pat Buchanan, you can be NOT critical of Israel and be anti-Semitic, you can be Jewish and anti-Semitic." Halper cites a former friend of his - Paul Eisen. To which list I quickly suggest Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir. We also discuss another category becoming increasingly recognisable in Europe at least, the pro-Israel Christian philo-semites, right-wing white nationalists, formerly harsh critics of Israel who, fearful of the "Muslim threat" to Europe, have shifted to backing Israel.
Bantustan or bust
Halper returns to more traditional ground when discussing Gaza and the West Bank. He is a vitriolic critic of all Israeli governments, past and present.
"Gaza is the largest prison in the world," says Halper. "Israel has developed what we call the matrix of control and you can clearly trace the development of these polices."
For Halper the situation in the West Bank is part of a carefully planned design.
"When Ariel Sharon became head of a ministerial committee on the settlements, in 1977,(former prime minister) Menachem Begin charged him with making 'Judea and Samaria' (they never called it the West Bank) Jewish. He was told to do it in such a way that forecloses the possibility of a Palestinian state. I don't call it a prison, the West Bank; I call it a bantustan. It's the same problem as existed in South Africa - how do you create a white democracy with a black majority? How do you create a Jewish democracy with a Palestinian majority? You take out areas A and B and the settlement blocs and put in the line of the 'security wall' and you have left a Palestinian bantustan."
Halper says that the recent leaks clearly show that Benyamin Netanyahu is looking for a collaborator in this - his "bantustan" version of the two-state solution. Alternatively, says Halper, the official Israeli policy is simply the status quo. "Israel believes it can do what South Africa couldn't; it can keep this thing going indefinitely because nobody can touch Israel."
Halper thinks, however, that a gulf is opening up between Europe and the US on Israel. Even Washington could soon be reviewing its options. Israel may have bi-partisan support in Congress but the price for supporting Israel, Halper concludes, is simply becoming too high.
"This isn't a localised debate. This impacts on the international system. James Baker (former Secretary of State) once called it the epicentre of the alienation between the entire Muslim world and the West. General Petraeus even said in the Senate that we can't get anywhere in Afghanistan because we're so identified with the Israeli occupation. Either Obama says to Congress - 'this policy is really killing us' or - perhaps more likely - it would be very hard for the US to stay away if every country recognised a Palestininan state. Then Israel really would be an occupying power."
Will it happen? Halper says that Abu Mazen should declare an independent Palestinian state.
"Either it will happen or the whole Palestinian Authority will collapse in the next few months. I don't see another year of the Palestinian Authority the way it is. Perhaps Abu Mazen will resign. If that happens there's no more pretence at a peace process; Israel would have to re-occupy the whole area, including Gaza, because you can't allow Hamas to fill that vacuum. That would force the hand of the international community. The level of violence would inflame the entire Muslim world and then the international community would act, with or without the US."
Halper believes that time could have run out for the two-state solution. Personally, he has no problem with a one-state bi-national solution. Just as many Afrikaners stayed in South Africa, so many Jews, he believes, would stay in Israel.
"I'm what you call a cultural Zionist and I like the idea of Hebrew language and literature. I have supported the two-state solution, but at some point your opinions or views have to be grounded in something. Proponents of a two-state solution have to address the question - is it still really possible? Is Israel capable of being pushed back to its '67 borders?"
Halper does not believe the theory that hostility in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is mutual or that the conflict has any symmetry. He demurs when I talk of "distrust" between both sides standing in the way of a one-state solution.
"Israel is the occupying power. Palestinians have supported a two-state solution since 1988. They don't have that animosity towards us. They're ready to give us 78 per cent of their country. The animosity is in one direction."
Halper cites a dark night in Gaza as proof that what Israelis are told bears little relation to the truth and that Palestinians and Israels could indeed live side by side in a secular, bi-national state.
"I was in Gaza two years ago, coming in on an aid boat (one of the first); Clare Short was on one. We actually got two boats in, because from the third sailing onwards the boats were blocked. I was in Gaza City on a night as black as coal (because of a power cut) sitting having coffee, surrounded by thousands of Palestinians. I was talking in Hebrew. You know what they were saying to me - 'how do we get out of this mess'? The Palestinian attitude is all this is just so silly."
Zionists or opportunists?
When I mention that international Jewish opinion would never countenance the end of the Jewish state, Halper is dismissive.
"But 75 per cent of Jews never came. Whenever Jews had a choice, they didn't come here. The Jews after apartheid went to the US and Australia; Jews in Argentina went to Mexico. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of them went to the US and then to Germany. Zionism was never meant to be just a refuge; it was meant to be a more positive nationalism. It said this is the heart of our civilisation. We're coming home. One of the key elements of Zionism was the negation of exile. The idea is that you are in exile. You might think you (I'm currently a resident of Sofia, Bulgaria) are in a diaspora but you're in exile. Your Jewish life is ephemeral. Your true identity is Israeli, so forget being Jewish and become Israeli, only then are you part of your people because the Jews, according to Zionist thinking, are a nation. But 90 to 95 per cent of Jews rejected that and chose instead to preserve their own nationality."
Halper cites a funny conversation with a Jewish family in Beverly Hills. The people in question referred to Israel as "a refuge" if they "needed somewhere to go". According to Halper, "the woman in Beverly Hills, who says I want a place to go IF I leave America is not a Zionist. If she were truly a Zionist, she would define herself nationally not as an American, but as an Israeli. She would be here in Israel".
Zionism, says Halper, doesn't necessarily equate to a state anyway, hence he does not believe that a one-state solution is collective Jewish suicide.
"It was only in 1942 that the idea of a Jewish state was formalised. Between 1897 (the first Zionist conference) and 1942, they weren't talking about a state; they were talking about a homeland. That was the idea. Only later did the idea of a state come into being. The state was not the core of the Zionist idea. The core of the Zionist dream was to come back and revive our national history."
A turning point in Israel's history, according to Halper, has come.
"The Zionism of armies and might - of Ben-Gurion - has exhausted itself. That leads me, together with the facts on the ground, to favour a bi-national democratic state. I'm not into this demography thing."
In any case, he does not believe that millions of Palestinian refugees would return to Israel if allowed to do so. He thinks that no more than 10 per cent of Palestinians would actually come back - mostly old people.
Halper doesn't hold the one-state solution to be ideal or even a better answer to the two-state solution. "Bi-national states are not happy by and large, but I've come to the conclusion that the two-state solution is gone."
Not in our name
Halper says Israel does not speak for many Jews in the US. It's unpopular, particularly with liberal Jewry.
"Jews in general have a big problem with Israel. If I were a Jew abroad I'd be really pissed off with Israel because Israel is doing all this stuff in your name. A total of 25,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the name of the Jewish people...I have a friend who says 70 per cent of American Jews are not connected to the mainstream organised Jewish community. They're into Seinfeld, not the synagogue. Eighty per cent of Jews voted for Obama. The other 20 per cent - professional Jewish activists who support AIPAC and the rest - are well organised and very influential, so they have a disproportionate voice."
Halper relates figures showing that 30 to 40 per cent of funding for the Republican Party comes from Jews. The right-wing Jewish activists, it seems, are good at promoting their cause and advancing their chosen candidates. He cites Mike Huckabee, perhaps the Republican Party's 2012 presidential candidate, who recently laid the foundation stone for a new settlement on the Mount of Olives.
Halper believes that the Pentagon is one of Israel's strongest backers - "Noam Chomsky (perhaps the most prominent S.H.I.T) called Israel America's largest aircraft carrier" - but again Halper thinks a sea change in US policy is inevitable.
"During the war on terror it made sense to support Israel but now, with Obama reaching out to the Muslim world, more Americans realise they must shift. So the pro-Israel stand contradicts even the interests of the military. But in the Pentagon, which is pro-Israel, you find the defence contractors. If you cut back on military aid, it costs jobs."
Jews, believes Halper, are not the "victims" in this conflict and for Israel to present itself as such is disingenuous.
"You can't present yourself as victims but be the fourth largest nuclear power in the world. There's a book called the Iron Wall (by Vladimir Jabotinsky) about the whole history of Arab-Jewish relations. It relates how, after the 1967 Six-Day War, defence minister Ezra Weizman was sent to Washington to get new arms from President Lyndon Johnson. So he comes to then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. 'What do I say? We've always presented ourselves as victims, yet we beat the whole Arab world in six days!' And Eshkol said - 'present us as poor little Samson' - in other words how do you put together the fact that we're super-strong but we're victims and you should still support us? It's that mixed message that's problematic for Israel."
Racism against Arabs, according to Halper, underpins Israel's hardline stance, just as the Holocaust is used to exploit fear of the "other". "Israeli Jews have always been told until today by ther leaders that the Arabs (because they never use the word 'Palestinians') are our permanent enemies - period - and peace is impossible, not because of us but because of them. That's an article of faith, whether you are on the Right or Left. It certainly doesn't lead to a two-state solution, because why would you give to your enemies the belly of your country?"
He quotes former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's unshakable dictum: "Arabs are Arabs, Jews are Jews and the sea is the sea". In other words, there is an irrevokable chasm between the two sides.
That kind of immutable thinking is just what Halper opposes.
"We're in favour of keeping this conflict political because if it's political, there's a solution. Once you start to say 'they are the problem', then you're mystifying things. That's racist and it leads to genocide, because then the only solution is the final solution. It's a very dangerous thing."
He thinks racism against Arabs, presenting the other side as the "problem', or imputing to Arabs a tendency not to value human life (as historian Benny Morris has done) is part of "colonial, racist dicourse", citing the same rhetoric that dehumanised blacks in South Africa.
Military men
Halper sounds so reasonable, and presents most Palestinians as willing partners to peace - ready to give up 78 per cent of historic Palestine to co-exist with Israel - so what, I ask, explains Israel's intransigence and the dwindling influence of the Left? Halper believes the clue lies in C Wright Mills' concept of a "crackpot realist". Israel's leaders are all military people; they see every solution through a militaristic mindset.
"So they have an authority when they speak which leaders in the UK lack. Who's more of a realist than a military guy who's been shot 10 times? The military is admittedly one important component - and I admit that security is legitimate - but if you view everything based on that, then you develop tunnel vision," says Halper. "Basically, when a former general like Ehud Barak, says that Israel has no partner for peace, then people believe him and retreat into the timeworn 'world is against us' mindset."
To hear Halper, cynicism and opportunism are the hallmarks of successive Israeli governments and most settlers in the West Bank.
"I've met every prime minister, barring Netanyahu, from Right and Left. We always had one question: where are you going with this, ruling over four million Palestinians, building settlements and demolishing houses? What's your end game? We never got an answer." He adds that his organisation has built 170 homes in the last 14 years as political acts of resistance.
He thinks that Israeli policy is simply to wear the Palestinians down - again citing Jabotinsky - to make them "despair" of ever having their own state, so that - in the present context at least - they reluctantly come to accept a bantustan.
"Most West Bank settlers are American. That's the thing. Many Israelis know this is unsustainable and so they have their 'escape' passports. So most settlers have duel nationality. If the US government forced them to choose between their two passports, the West Bank would empty out and the settlers would go back to New York. Novelist Amos Oz (another S.H.I.T lister) once said - 'Will the last one out of the airport, please turn off the light?"
Jeff Halper is most definitely NOT turning off the light. He believes that Jews do have a place in Israel but his is one of the most powerful voices for a change in direction. Until that happens he has no problem with being a S.H.I.T. He's in good company, after all.
Gabriel Hershman is Senior Editor of Sofia Echo Media in Bulgaria. He can be reached at: gabrielhershman@hotmail.com.
Talking With Jeff Halper About the Future of Palestine
By GABRIEL HERSHMAN
http://www.counterpunch.org/hershman03222011.html
The West Bank would empty of settlers overnight if they were asked to choose between American and Israeli citizenship, says activist Jeff Halper, a powerful exponent of the Israeli government's moral bankruptcy.
Mention the S.H.I.T list - the Masada 2000 Kahanists' "Self-Hating Israel-Threatening" Jews list - that mysteriously sprang up several years ago and Jeff Halper, founder and co-ordinator of the Jerusalem-based Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) beams with pride. He says the compilers have done a great job.
Like others on the Israeli Left, and indeed Jews everywhere critical of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, to be a S.H.I.T is an honour. Not that Halper would agree with the appellation, of course. He identifies himself as a "cultural Zionist", but he thinks those included are upstanding citizens.
To Halper and others like him, the fanatical zealots behind the list use the anti-Semitic label to ward off any barbs aimed by gentiles at Israel. So it's only natural that they would brand Jews like him - and to name but a few - veteran Haaretz journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass - as self-hating Jews.
Not that Halper is your standard lefty; he surprises me by being able to discern anti-Semitism behind the most fervent American Christian Zionists. He's also got a good nose for sussing out a Jew-hating gentile fascist masquerading as a left-wing anti-Zionist ex-Jew. Or borderline anti-Semitism in a far-left, pro-Palestinian former British MP. No prizes for guessing who!
Self-fulfilling prophesy?
The discourse surrounding Israel and anti-Semitism is like an endless shaggy dog story. The Right says the world is against us, the Jews are the eternal victims of attempts by racist Europeans or fanaticised Arabs to hound us into the sea or gas chambers. Get out of Europe, say the European Nazis. Get out of Palestine, says Helen Thomas. So, you see, we're not wanted anywhere!
The Left says Israel has perpetuated anti-Semitism - yes, indeed the world is against us, but that's because Israel has flouted international resolutions, persisted in its illegal occupation and persuaded the more extreme elements of international Jewry to finance its agenda. But we only need Jewish nationalism because of anti-Semitism, says the Right, so we need our own state and screw the rest.
Back to the S.H.I.T list. Halper, 64, a diminutive but well built bearded bear of a man has obviously done some investigations. He is passionate about the damage done to Palestinians but seems unfazed at his own prominence on the list. His own thumb nail portrait is particularly colourful. "This American-born anti-Israel agitator concerns himself and ICAHD only incidentally with house demolition. Their primary concern is the demolition of Israel," says the site, which charmingly refers to him as a "sick, self-hating kike". This for a man who emigrated to Israel more than 30 years ago. Actually, in the flesh, Halper comes across as an engaging and delightful kind of Jewish Santa. Warm-hearted but not especially sensitive about himself, Halper, a child of the civil rights movement, is now the veteran of countless attempts to salvage Palestinian homes, sit-ins and arrests.
Halper, slightly tongue-in-cheek, is at pains to praise the research.
"We use that list. If I want a research list of 5000 critical people, it's great," he says, while quibbling with the inclusion of some, like former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk. For Halper, it seems, to be a S.H.I.T (in this context) is a compliment.
So who bears the credit for this work of scholarship, some of which carries not only a potted history of the "worst" S.H.I.Ts but also some imaginative imagery? Some, for example, have close-ups of cavities, no doubt in an attempt to show that it's not only the bearer's gums that are diseased.
"I'm sure there was somebody in Boston because the Boston people have in-depth profiles about their families," says Halper from his office in central Jerusalem. "There's a right-wing group - called Camera - with Alan Dershowitz on its board, based in Boston. They carry a picture of me, sometimes it's just a name, but the Boston people have extensive biographies attached to their names."
Israel-haters, Jew-haters and Armageddon-lovers.
In Israel - and indeed the world at large - the term "the Left" has now become synonymous with hostility to Israel and its actions. The far Left, in particular, is anti-colonialist, anti-American, anti-nationalist and anti the "Zionist entity", viewing it as a client state of evil big brother capitalist America. But, as Halper points out, in the US the Republican Party is traditionally the most hostile to Israel.
"Jews don't vote Republican. George HW Bush, together with (former secretary of state) James Baker, withheld 10 billion dollars of oil guarantees. George W Bush, on the other hand, was a born again Christian and 100 degrees different fom his father on Israel. The whole rise of the neo-cons and the Christian Right in the US - the likes of Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson - came after Bush the father. Bush Senior was the old Republican right-wing, like Nixon and Goldwater. You can be critical of Israel for different reasons. The Christian Zionists are anti-Semites; they don't like Jews but they think that Israel has to be strong and get into a war for Armageddon to come. So they use Israel. They're not pro-Israel, but pro the Messiah coming and they need Israel for that. That's what motivates them, not love of Jews."
No other country in the world has such a complex dynamic surrounding it as Israel as Halper's (undeniably) accurate appraisal of Israel's weird coalition of friends and foes attests to.
"You can be critical of Israel and not be anti-Semitic. You can be critical of Israel and anti-Semitic - like Pat Buchanan, you can be NOT critical of Israel and be anti-Semitic, you can be Jewish and anti-Semitic." Halper cites a former friend of his - Paul Eisen. To which list I quickly suggest Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir. We also discuss another category becoming increasingly recognisable in Europe at least, the pro-Israel Christian philo-semites, right-wing white nationalists, formerly harsh critics of Israel who, fearful of the "Muslim threat" to Europe, have shifted to backing Israel.
Bantustan or bust
Halper returns to more traditional ground when discussing Gaza and the West Bank. He is a vitriolic critic of all Israeli governments, past and present.
"Gaza is the largest prison in the world," says Halper. "Israel has developed what we call the matrix of control and you can clearly trace the development of these polices."
For Halper the situation in the West Bank is part of a carefully planned design.
"When Ariel Sharon became head of a ministerial committee on the settlements, in 1977,(former prime minister) Menachem Begin charged him with making 'Judea and Samaria' (they never called it the West Bank) Jewish. He was told to do it in such a way that forecloses the possibility of a Palestinian state. I don't call it a prison, the West Bank; I call it a bantustan. It's the same problem as existed in South Africa - how do you create a white democracy with a black majority? How do you create a Jewish democracy with a Palestinian majority? You take out areas A and B and the settlement blocs and put in the line of the 'security wall' and you have left a Palestinian bantustan."
Halper says that the recent leaks clearly show that Benyamin Netanyahu is looking for a collaborator in this - his "bantustan" version of the two-state solution. Alternatively, says Halper, the official Israeli policy is simply the status quo. "Israel believes it can do what South Africa couldn't; it can keep this thing going indefinitely because nobody can touch Israel."
Halper thinks, however, that a gulf is opening up between Europe and the US on Israel. Even Washington could soon be reviewing its options. Israel may have bi-partisan support in Congress but the price for supporting Israel, Halper concludes, is simply becoming too high.
"This isn't a localised debate. This impacts on the international system. James Baker (former Secretary of State) once called it the epicentre of the alienation between the entire Muslim world and the West. General Petraeus even said in the Senate that we can't get anywhere in Afghanistan because we're so identified with the Israeli occupation. Either Obama says to Congress - 'this policy is really killing us' or - perhaps more likely - it would be very hard for the US to stay away if every country recognised a Palestininan state. Then Israel really would be an occupying power."
Will it happen? Halper says that Abu Mazen should declare an independent Palestinian state.
"Either it will happen or the whole Palestinian Authority will collapse in the next few months. I don't see another year of the Palestinian Authority the way it is. Perhaps Abu Mazen will resign. If that happens there's no more pretence at a peace process; Israel would have to re-occupy the whole area, including Gaza, because you can't allow Hamas to fill that vacuum. That would force the hand of the international community. The level of violence would inflame the entire Muslim world and then the international community would act, with or without the US."
Halper believes that time could have run out for the two-state solution. Personally, he has no problem with a one-state bi-national solution. Just as many Afrikaners stayed in South Africa, so many Jews, he believes, would stay in Israel.
"I'm what you call a cultural Zionist and I like the idea of Hebrew language and literature. I have supported the two-state solution, but at some point your opinions or views have to be grounded in something. Proponents of a two-state solution have to address the question - is it still really possible? Is Israel capable of being pushed back to its '67 borders?"
Halper does not believe the theory that hostility in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is mutual or that the conflict has any symmetry. He demurs when I talk of "distrust" between both sides standing in the way of a one-state solution.
"Israel is the occupying power. Palestinians have supported a two-state solution since 1988. They don't have that animosity towards us. They're ready to give us 78 per cent of their country. The animosity is in one direction."
Halper cites a dark night in Gaza as proof that what Israelis are told bears little relation to the truth and that Palestinians and Israels could indeed live side by side in a secular, bi-national state.
"I was in Gaza two years ago, coming in on an aid boat (one of the first); Clare Short was on one. We actually got two boats in, because from the third sailing onwards the boats were blocked. I was in Gaza City on a night as black as coal (because of a power cut) sitting having coffee, surrounded by thousands of Palestinians. I was talking in Hebrew. You know what they were saying to me - 'how do we get out of this mess'? The Palestinian attitude is all this is just so silly."
Zionists or opportunists?
When I mention that international Jewish opinion would never countenance the end of the Jewish state, Halper is dismissive.
"But 75 per cent of Jews never came. Whenever Jews had a choice, they didn't come here. The Jews after apartheid went to the US and Australia; Jews in Argentina went to Mexico. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of them went to the US and then to Germany. Zionism was never meant to be just a refuge; it was meant to be a more positive nationalism. It said this is the heart of our civilisation. We're coming home. One of the key elements of Zionism was the negation of exile. The idea is that you are in exile. You might think you (I'm currently a resident of Sofia, Bulgaria) are in a diaspora but you're in exile. Your Jewish life is ephemeral. Your true identity is Israeli, so forget being Jewish and become Israeli, only then are you part of your people because the Jews, according to Zionist thinking, are a nation. But 90 to 95 per cent of Jews rejected that and chose instead to preserve their own nationality."
Halper cites a funny conversation with a Jewish family in Beverly Hills. The people in question referred to Israel as "a refuge" if they "needed somewhere to go". According to Halper, "the woman in Beverly Hills, who says I want a place to go IF I leave America is not a Zionist. If she were truly a Zionist, she would define herself nationally not as an American, but as an Israeli. She would be here in Israel".
Zionism, says Halper, doesn't necessarily equate to a state anyway, hence he does not believe that a one-state solution is collective Jewish suicide.
"It was only in 1942 that the idea of a Jewish state was formalised. Between 1897 (the first Zionist conference) and 1942, they weren't talking about a state; they were talking about a homeland. That was the idea. Only later did the idea of a state come into being. The state was not the core of the Zionist idea. The core of the Zionist dream was to come back and revive our national history."
A turning point in Israel's history, according to Halper, has come.
"The Zionism of armies and might - of Ben-Gurion - has exhausted itself. That leads me, together with the facts on the ground, to favour a bi-national democratic state. I'm not into this demography thing."
In any case, he does not believe that millions of Palestinian refugees would return to Israel if allowed to do so. He thinks that no more than 10 per cent of Palestinians would actually come back - mostly old people.
Halper doesn't hold the one-state solution to be ideal or even a better answer to the two-state solution. "Bi-national states are not happy by and large, but I've come to the conclusion that the two-state solution is gone."
Not in our name
Halper says Israel does not speak for many Jews in the US. It's unpopular, particularly with liberal Jewry.
"Jews in general have a big problem with Israel. If I were a Jew abroad I'd be really pissed off with Israel because Israel is doing all this stuff in your name. A total of 25,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the name of the Jewish people...I have a friend who says 70 per cent of American Jews are not connected to the mainstream organised Jewish community. They're into Seinfeld, not the synagogue. Eighty per cent of Jews voted for Obama. The other 20 per cent - professional Jewish activists who support AIPAC and the rest - are well organised and very influential, so they have a disproportionate voice."
Halper relates figures showing that 30 to 40 per cent of funding for the Republican Party comes from Jews. The right-wing Jewish activists, it seems, are good at promoting their cause and advancing their chosen candidates. He cites Mike Huckabee, perhaps the Republican Party's 2012 presidential candidate, who recently laid the foundation stone for a new settlement on the Mount of Olives.
Halper believes that the Pentagon is one of Israel's strongest backers - "Noam Chomsky (perhaps the most prominent S.H.I.T) called Israel America's largest aircraft carrier" - but again Halper thinks a sea change in US policy is inevitable.
"During the war on terror it made sense to support Israel but now, with Obama reaching out to the Muslim world, more Americans realise they must shift. So the pro-Israel stand contradicts even the interests of the military. But in the Pentagon, which is pro-Israel, you find the defence contractors. If you cut back on military aid, it costs jobs."
Jews, believes Halper, are not the "victims" in this conflict and for Israel to present itself as such is disingenuous.
"You can't present yourself as victims but be the fourth largest nuclear power in the world. There's a book called the Iron Wall (by Vladimir Jabotinsky) about the whole history of Arab-Jewish relations. It relates how, after the 1967 Six-Day War, defence minister Ezra Weizman was sent to Washington to get new arms from President Lyndon Johnson. So he comes to then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. 'What do I say? We've always presented ourselves as victims, yet we beat the whole Arab world in six days!' And Eshkol said - 'present us as poor little Samson' - in other words how do you put together the fact that we're super-strong but we're victims and you should still support us? It's that mixed message that's problematic for Israel."
Racism against Arabs, according to Halper, underpins Israel's hardline stance, just as the Holocaust is used to exploit fear of the "other". "Israeli Jews have always been told until today by ther leaders that the Arabs (because they never use the word 'Palestinians') are our permanent enemies - period - and peace is impossible, not because of us but because of them. That's an article of faith, whether you are on the Right or Left. It certainly doesn't lead to a two-state solution, because why would you give to your enemies the belly of your country?"
He quotes former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's unshakable dictum: "Arabs are Arabs, Jews are Jews and the sea is the sea". In other words, there is an irrevokable chasm between the two sides.
That kind of immutable thinking is just what Halper opposes.
"We're in favour of keeping this conflict political because if it's political, there's a solution. Once you start to say 'they are the problem', then you're mystifying things. That's racist and it leads to genocide, because then the only solution is the final solution. It's a very dangerous thing."
He thinks racism against Arabs, presenting the other side as the "problem', or imputing to Arabs a tendency not to value human life (as historian Benny Morris has done) is part of "colonial, racist dicourse", citing the same rhetoric that dehumanised blacks in South Africa.
Military men
Halper sounds so reasonable, and presents most Palestinians as willing partners to peace - ready to give up 78 per cent of historic Palestine to co-exist with Israel - so what, I ask, explains Israel's intransigence and the dwindling influence of the Left? Halper believes the clue lies in C Wright Mills' concept of a "crackpot realist". Israel's leaders are all military people; they see every solution through a militaristic mindset.
"So they have an authority when they speak which leaders in the UK lack. Who's more of a realist than a military guy who's been shot 10 times? The military is admittedly one important component - and I admit that security is legitimate - but if you view everything based on that, then you develop tunnel vision," says Halper. "Basically, when a former general like Ehud Barak, says that Israel has no partner for peace, then people believe him and retreat into the timeworn 'world is against us' mindset."
To hear Halper, cynicism and opportunism are the hallmarks of successive Israeli governments and most settlers in the West Bank.
"I've met every prime minister, barring Netanyahu, from Right and Left. We always had one question: where are you going with this, ruling over four million Palestinians, building settlements and demolishing houses? What's your end game? We never got an answer." He adds that his organisation has built 170 homes in the last 14 years as political acts of resistance.
He thinks that Israeli policy is simply to wear the Palestinians down - again citing Jabotinsky - to make them "despair" of ever having their own state, so that - in the present context at least - they reluctantly come to accept a bantustan.
"Most West Bank settlers are American. That's the thing. Many Israelis know this is unsustainable and so they have their 'escape' passports. So most settlers have duel nationality. If the US government forced them to choose between their two passports, the West Bank would empty out and the settlers would go back to New York. Novelist Amos Oz (another S.H.I.T lister) once said - 'Will the last one out of the airport, please turn off the light?"
Jeff Halper is most definitely NOT turning off the light. He believes that Jews do have a place in Israel but his is one of the most powerful voices for a change in direction. Until that happens he has no problem with being a S.H.I.T. He's in good company, after all.
Gabriel Hershman is Senior Editor of Sofia Echo Media in Bulgaria. He can be reached at: gabrielhershman@hotmail.com.
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