Israeli Officials Think Road to Peace Runs Through Teheran
Via Steve Clemons, Peter Berkowitz pens a disturbing article for The Weekly Standard:
The major difference between the candidates went unaddressed at Herzliya. It concerns the future of Israeli settlements, the towns and cities built and populated by Israel in the territories it gained control over in 1967 in the Six Day War. While he almost certainly would not build new settlements, Netanyahu remains unlikely, without pressure from the United States, to freeze the natural growth of existing settlements. In contrast, both Livni and Barak would probably impose a freeze on all new building beyond the Green Line. Livni and Barak recognize, however, along with Netanyahu, that the settlements are far from the fundamental obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.
Indeed, the journalists, political analysts, and current and former national security officials to whom I spoke were in striking agreement that Livni and Barak as well as Netanyahu all see that the fundamental obstacle to progress in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is Iran. Indeed, the case for Iran’s centrality is convincing.
The case for Iran’s centrality is not, in fact, even remotely plausible. Israel’s Palestinian problem is fairly simple to define—there are millions of Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled territory. To preserve its Jewish character, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens. And so the Palestinians live, stateless and without rights, and they’re not happy about it. Exactly what to do about this situation is a somewhat thorny issue, but Israeli leaders have spent a distressing amount of time over the past ten years trying to convince themselves that their Palestinian problem is about something other than this. That it’s “really” about Syria or “really” about Iraq or “really” about Iran. Before the invasion of Iraq it was common to hear that the road to peace in the Middle East ran through Baghdad. That somehow if Saddam Hussein were removed from power, this would somehow so demoralize the Palestinians that they become willing to accept what Israel is prepared to offer.
Obviously, that didn’t work out. But instead of the failure of the Iraq Theory leading Israelis to get real about what’s going on, it’s led them to take refuge in the new and updated Iran Theory whereby these problems would vanish if somehow Iranian power and influence could be crushed.
In fact, this reading of the situation is likely backwards. The persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a boon to rejectionist and political movements in the Middle East. Officials from the bulk of Arab states are plainly alarmed by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon. But it’s impossible for those countries to form a united front with Israel and the United States as long as the U.S. is helping to finance an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. And it’s impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians as long as they continue to expand settlements and refuse to even enforce Israeli law against the settlers. The settlement issue is politically difficult for Israeli politicians, which fuels desires to believe that it’s not central to the security issues in the region, but the fact is that it is central and U.S. diplomatic pressure is necessary to alter the Israeli domestic political calculus and make it possible for Israeli leaders to do the right thing.
83 Responses to “Israeli Officials Think Road to Peace Runs Through Teheran”
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February 7th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Where, exactly, might one find “Teheran?”
February 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
That this needs to be said is testimony to the utter insanity of our political discourse vis a vis Israel.
February 7th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Israel’s behavior is typical among alcoholics and drug addicts. The addict will never admit that he caused his own problems. He always tries to shift blame to external sources. And this is almost always wrong. The first place to look for blame is always yourself. After all, your own actions are the easiest to control.
February 7th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
‘Teheran’ is Matt’s affectation, perhaps because he can misspell it with relative impunity.
You could also go with the Gary Brecher version:
February 7th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Let the Zionist b&st&rds get driven into the sea. There is no need for there to be a Jewish state in Israel, only a need for a peaceful state in Israel.
Time for the US to stop funding a Jewish state in Israel. After all we have separation of church and state enshrined in our constitution, and the creation of Israel was only meant to create a Jewish religious state in the Palestinian territory. As much as the Jews might think that separation of church and state does not apply to the US funding protection of their synagogues it does! Stop funding the Zionists and get the USA the heck away from this conflict!!!!
February 7th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but this kind of barking seems strangely incomplete:
“To preserve its Jewish character, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens.”
I guess that’s part of it. But I think it’s fair to make addendums like:
“To preserve its Jewish character, AND PERHAPS BECAUSE PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO STRAP BOMBS TO THEMSELVES AND BLOW UP BUSES, COFFEE SHOPS AND PEOPLE, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens.”
It’s not like the only concern is that neighborhoods won’t have enough menoras in windows on the appropriate days, or that the main fear is a melting pot of cuisines. Nor is it like the only motivation “Palestinians” have is to have the right to vote or secure a fair number of civil service positions.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I heard that story before… all Neocon and Israel-firsters where saying that.
Iran, and Syria are just the current excuses once they get their puppets in the US Government to take them out, at the expense of US blood and treasury of course, they will be saying that the the road to peace really runs through Riyadh or N’Djamena or Ankh-Morpork.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sam M, it’s very odd to say that Israel is apprehensive about giving Palestinians full citizenship because they fear suicide bombings, when the Israeli Arabs who have been given full citizenship don’t carry out suicide bombings. (At least not until recently; it’s my understanding that Israeli Arabs have been more radicalized lately.) It’s also a bit odd to say that Palestinian suicide bombs explain why the Israelis never gave the inhabitants of the occupied territories full citizenship when the first Palestinian suicide attack against Israelis took place more than 25 years after the start of the occupation.
Also, only dead-end historical revisionist Israeli maximalists put “Palestinian” in scare quotes, so I doubt your claim not to have a dog in this fight.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Actually it’s long been obvious that the road to peace in the middle east runs through Hobart Tasmania.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
It occurs to me more and more that Israel and the Saudis are extremely close allies. As both are to us. The Saudis hate the Shite Persians, and don’t give a care about the Palestinians, is one way to read it. I think the Saudis expect us to do Iran eventually. I’m open for violent dismissal of this sort of idea.
In a related issue: If oil goes lower and stays there for an extended period. Something that does not seem highly likely but possible. It puts the House of Saud in danger I think.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
R’lyeh
February 7th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Well said Sam. Matt, any comment on whether Palestinians want citizenship in Israel or not? History suggests Israel is not the only one rejecting integrating the Palestinians into Israeli society.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
“…it’s impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians as long as they continue to expand settlements…”
I’d like to see the logic of this spelled out. Why and how, exactly, do settlements make it impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians?
The argument, as I understand it, is that the settlements enrage and radicalize the Palestinians and make them less inclined to negotiate a deal.
This isn’t an unreasonable narrative, and there is probably some truth to it, but let me offer a counter-narrative: If Israel and the Palestinians actually managed to make a deal, the deal would presumably include that Israelis cease settling on land allocated to the Palestinian state. In other words, a deal would prevent any further settlement on Palestinian lands. So from the Palestinian perspective, the sooner there’s a deal, the sooner the settlement problem is resolved.
So someone — Yglesias? — needs to explain to me why the first narrative is so much more compelling than the second, or else offer some other explanation for why settlements prevent negotiations. Otherwise I don’t see any reason why we should make this assumption.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Correcting spelling errors on the Internet is a fantastic concept. Sam, I’m putting you in charge of this effort — could you please scan all political blogs and begin correcting any spelling errors you encounter. Please contact me when you’ve finished for your next assignment.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
On the case, Garuda. On the case.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
“only dead-end historical revisionist Israeli maximalists put ‘Palestinian’ in scare quotes”
Other people who do it include folks who are trying to highlight that they understand that not all Palestinians are suicide bombers. So instead of saying that Palestinians are suicide bombers, prefer to say “Palestinians” are suicide bombers.
Alternatively, perhaps only dead-end Isreali minimalists misconstrue everything everybody says as a sign of anti-Palestinian bias.
Now, to the larger point, do you honestly believe that the only thing motivating Isreali policy is a concern about “preserving Jewish character”? Seriously? Like, they just really, really want all grocery stores to be kosher? That this is akin, in a serious way, to 2003 hipsters concerned about the authenticity of their Williamsburg neighborhood? That there is no concern, at all, about security?
Come on. That’s nonsense.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Larry Birnbaum, I’m not sure whether your question is honest and misguided, or merely reprehensible and mendacious.
The simple answer to your question is that current peace proposals with the Palestinians are founded upon a notion called the ‘Two State’ solution. The idea is that the Israeli’s will have their state, and the Palestinian’s can have a state based on what’s left.
Right off the bat, that’s not a terrific premise for the Palestinians, since it leaves them with, at best 21% of their original territory, and leaves the question of millions od displaced refugee Palestinians remaining up in the air.
But, be that as it may, that’s what’s on the table for the west, and by and large, the Palestinians, including Hamas are prepared to at least contemplate it.
The trouble with the settlers moving into Palestinian territories is partly that they expropriate Palestinian lands, disrupt Palestinian economies, steal Palestinian water and resources, terrorize and brutalize the local Palestinian population and create an apartheid system of special roads and facilities in Palestinian territories that are Israeli only (or settler only) that further disrupts Palestinian infrastructure… that’s all bad enough.
The larger problem is that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories effectively forecloses even the possibility of a coherent state in the sense of a political entity occupying a contiguous territory, controlling its borders and administering that territory. Instead, what you get is a potwork melange of disconnected or divided bits of territory more akin to the bantustsans of South Africa or the Indian or Aborigine reservations of America or Australia than a state. In essence – a non-state. In this sense, it’s not an erosion from 21% to 19% or 17% of the remaining territory. It’s essentially an all or nothing proposition – either the Palestinian state has the elements of sovereignty or it doesn’t. With settlers and settlements, it does not and cannot.
Now, there might be ways to deal with this. For instance, if Israel agreed that all the settlers in the West Bank were to be under Palestinian Jurisdiction and be considered legally Palestinians. But that is something the settlers would never accept. Nor is it something for which there is any kind of appetite by Israel or Israeli’s. That’s a non-starter.
Another approach might be to remove the Settlers. But again, that’s not going to fly with the Settlers, and Israel has no stomache for that kind of contest.
In any event, the Settlers themselves as a political movement are completely opposed to a Palestinian state, and they swing enough weight with Israel proper, that their agenda is respected.
If a ‘two state’ solution becomes impossible, what’s left? A continuation of the present unworkable situation? Apartheid? Some form of racist state set up, a creation and perpetuation of Warsaw Ghettos? Genocide? What are the options for peace? That the Palestinians commit mass suicide? That they just ‘go away’ somewhere? That they get over it and resign themselves to eternal subhuman status?
February 7th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Matt, any comment on whether Palestinians want citizenship in Israel or not? History suggests Israel is not the only one rejecting integrating the Palestinians into Israeli society.
Your question is impossible to answer. If the question is: Do Palestinians want a voting polity in the territories controlled by the Israeli government the answer is yes. The further down the anti-zionist road you want to go the answer would be more yes, not less yes.
“Israel” as it’s defined itself isn’t a concept any non-Jewish member of the state would enter into, but that’s not the same thing.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
The argument, as I understand it, is that the settlements enrage and radicalize the Palestinians and make them less inclined to negotiate a deal.
The further argument is that the strategic character of settlement-building makes any independent Palestinian state non-viable, and that the settlers least likely to leave are in those land-grabbing ‘outposts’ that piss off Palestinians the most.
Suburban Israelis living in Tel Aviv don’t particularly like the idea of their IDF conscript kids in shootouts with the equivalent of the backwoods militia, in order to re-settle those zealots a couple of blocks away.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
What Skeptic said. Well put, kid.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Sam M, your comments seem to be made in ignorance of the demographics of the region. Let’s take a look.
The population of Israel is 6 million.
Of this, 20% are Israeli arabs.
That means that there are 4.8 million Jews and 1.2 million arabs in Israel proper.
The population of the West Bank is 2.5 million, with perhaps 250,000 settlers, round it up to 300 if you like. The population of Gaza is 1.5 million. That’s 4 million total. Or 3.7 million arabs and 0.3 million jews.
Mix em up together, and you’ve got 5.1 million jews, and 4.9 million Arabs. At this point, Israel ceases to be a Jewish state in any meaningful sense, and becomes a bi-racial or bi-religious state.
Israel’s entire electoral politics becomes irrelevant, because the Palestinian Arabs will also be voting. And they’re not going to be voting for Kadima or Likud or anything like that.
Indeed, there’s a substantial likelihood that Arabs voting will present a real challenge to political control of the state.
Demographics will make that worse. In ten or twenty years, the proportions will reverse, and Arabs will hold the majority.
Beyond these simple questions of power and control, there are also economic factors. The per capita income of Israeli’s is 35 times that of residents of Gaza. Presumably West Bank residents are a little better off, but still way behind. their per capita income be be a tenth or twentieth. The Gaza and West Bank arab infrastructure is decades behind and requires massive investment to bring it up to Israeli standards.
That’s a hell of an effort. West Germany was able to absorb East Germany, a state a quarter of its size, and with a much closer level of income, infrastructure and development, but still the disparities almost bankrupted it.
Israel would have to literally accommodate a population nearly the size of its own, facing monstrous poverty. And Israel’s economy is not all that solid as it is. To even begin to deal with this would require investment and resources on apocalyptic scales, and dramatic shifts in the standard of living of Israeli’s.
So economically and politically, Israel’s not going to be thrilled with the concept of a ‘one state’ solution.
Sadly, that may be the only option they’ve left themselves.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
As usual, Mr. Yglesias is full of prunes. The fact is that Iran is backing both Hamas and Hizbollah and is opposed to any deal that would not result in the Government of Israel going out of business. In the (very) unlikely event that the Government of Israel and the Hamas leadership cut some sort of deal, the Mullahs in Iran would make every effort to sabotage it, probably by assassinating any Hamas leaders to made suc an agreement. The unfortunate fact is that the current Government in Iran will not, under any circumstances, continence the existence of the State of Israel as it currently exists. Until Mr. Yglesias gets that through his thick head, he will continue to write this sort of crap.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Matt, any comment on whether Palestinians want citizenship in Israel or not? History suggests Israel is not the only one rejecting integrating the Palestinians into Israeli society.
Well, the Palestinians surely aren’t eager for straightforward annexation. They might, however, be less discontented if they were given some rights rather than being subjected to military occupation and/or frequent invasions.
It’s also worth noting that many Palestinians would like to be able to return to the land from which they were driven in 1948 or 1967. How many of them would be able to coexist with Israelis there, if the Israelis would accept them? Hard to say. (The Palestinians are by no means innocents.) But it’s moot, because Israel would never accept them.
In any case, it’s utterly absurd to pretend that Israeli conducted a military occupation of Palestinian territories because of time-traveling suicide bombers from 25 years into the future. It’s even absurd to pretend that the Israelis would’ve given the Palestinians full rights if not for the terrorism that Palestinian paramilitary organizations did carry out. If the Israeli goal was to reduce Palestinian terrorism, the occupation has been utterly counterproductive.
Larry — the Palestinians did sign on to a deal in 1993. It didn’t lead to a halt in settlement activity. And in fact, it’s not just that the settlements enrage the Palestinians; in order to preserve settlements, the Israelis have demanded territorial concessions from the Palestinians that the Palestinians find inaccessible. For instance, the Israeli proposal at Camp David would’ve divided the Palestinian West Bank into non-contiguous sections in order to preserve Israeli control of roads to the settlements. So your counternarrative, that the Palestinians would strike a deal quickly if they didn’t like settlements, is uncompelling if the deals on offer don’t solve the problem of settlements.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Teheran is a correct alternative pronunciation of Tehran.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
At the time I posted my 23, the last comment visible was 15. I see Sam M has asked me a very silly question — the answer is, no I don’t, and I didn’t say I did. Also, the proper way to say that you don’t mean the word “Palestinians” to apply to all Palestinians is to say “some Palestinians,” not to use scare quotes.
Skeptic and pseudonymous have explained well why settlements are an obstacle to peace.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
The unfortunate fact is that a peace deal in the Middle East will deny SLC of masturbation fodder, given that he only gets tumescent at the thought of the region nuked into atoms.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
This conflict didn’t begin in 1967,and won’t end on
those lines.
It is utter dishonesty to claim otherwise.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
You are being generous to call this thesis implausible. It is a neocon delusion, and no matter how many of their other middle eastern delusions are destroyed by reality they’ll keep pushing this additional one, until someday there is a disastrous confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Israel could annex the territories and grant everybody full citizenship rights. Or Israel could be persuaded to make meaningful concessions toward a Palestinian state. Those are really the only two possibilities that don’t end catastrophically.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Where, exactly, might one find “Teheran?”
Dude, get over it. Yglesias writes a blog, which is, at its essence a free flow of unedited thoughts. Writing as prolifically as Matthew does every day, without an editor, one is bound to make spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, and to misuse homonyms. It happens. And yet every single time it does someone feels the need to comment on it.
Every. Single. Time. How very unhelpful.
And given that spelling flames have been offsides since Usenet circa 1994, how very fucking lame.
~
As useful as Skeptic and Tyro’s comments were, I have to go with #9 FTW…
February 7th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
So Matt W., you would agree that “To preserve its Jewish character, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens” does not really do all that good a job of explaining, or even summarizing, the situation?
February 7th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Re JimboSlice
I am in agreement with Mr. JimboSlice that aid to Israel should be phased out. This will remove the hammer that the POTUS holds over the Government of Israel which requires the latter to get the permission of the former before defending itself. Remove that hammer and the Government if Israel will be able to settle matters with the Hamas terrorists once and for all by the application of Hama Rules. Although the likely new government, led by wimps Netanyahu and Lieberman, will probably not have the cojones to remove the State of Israel from the US teat, the men behind them, Benjamin Begin and Uzi Landau are real men who will not hesitate to make such a removal.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Israel just slaughtered people in Gaza. How much more of an advantage do they expect to gain by taking Iran out of the equation? As if that can be done without creating far more problems for them.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The Zionist plan had always been to have the neighboring governments take the displaced Palestinians as refugees who would have to eventually become citizens of those other countries. That is why they are mostly in “refugee” camps/towns/cities. They did not plan on the unified opinion of the local leadership in denying the legitimacy of that plan. Except for the Egyptian leadership selling their soul, the mostly unified opinion has kept remarkably stable since 1948.
Let the Palestinians return home. Zionist Israel must be put to sleep.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Re Seedee Vee
Let the Palestinians return home. Zionist Israel must be put to sleep.
This will happen with fuckface Seedee Vee sees the back of his own ear.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Can I ask a different kind of question from the whole “Is Zionism just?” argument, that I’m pretty sure we all did recently?
Mainly: How reliable is the reporting of Peter Berkowitz and The Weekly Standard?
February 7th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
SLC Says: nothing important.
But it is glad to see you showing that Zionist spirit!
February 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
SLC Says: This will happen with fuckface Seedee Vee sees the back of his own ear.
Hey, SLC. I just got this new light bending technology. I think they call it a mirror or something. It is really cool and I just saw the back of my own ear!
Cheers!
February 7th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Re Seedee Vee
Mirrors don’t count.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
“This conflict didn’t begin in 1967,and won’t end on
those lines.”
No shit. It began in the late 1800s with the Ottoman Empire allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine. No doubt the current leaders of Turkey regret that decision. But it might have worked out fine without the disastrous British Mandate. From there, it’s only gone downhill. As for the end game, it’s pretty obvious. Israel will control all of Palestine except for Gaza. And they will always blockade Gaza. As for the Arabs in the West Bank, they will be forced to flee to Jordan. There’s just too much water in the West Bank for Israel to give it up. And nobody will stop them. Hell, we wouldn’t even think of cutting off aid. No politician will risk being labeled an anti-Semite. Until Israel actually launches an attack on US soil, the aid will flow with no strings attached.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Re fostert
Until Israel actually launches an attack on US soil, the aid will flow with no strings attached.
Does this comment by Mr. fostert mean that he doesn’t buy into the Arab claim that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Mossad?
February 7th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Winsmith, I doubt if you will do any better for yourself here than you did at Greenwalds. Face it, Winsmith, as a hasbarist you ain’t got what it takes to meet today’s challenges.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
There are no Palestinians! There is no Palestinian land! Israel is surrounded by subhumans! ZZZZZzzzzzzz……..
February 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
“Does this comment by Mr. fostert mean that he doesn’t buy into the Arab claim that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Mossad?”
I certainly don’t believe Mossad had anything to do with 911. Pissed off Saudi citizens egged on by bin Laden’s inflamed rhetoric did that job. That’s not to say that Israel won’t make strange bedfellows. They worked with the Saudis, Egyptians, and Pakistanis to supply weapons to the Mujahadin in Afghanistan. With the right incentives, they are capable of anything. And I don’t mean that as a criticism. If fact, I admire the practicality of the Israelis. They are achieving what they want using a slow and methodical process. The settlements are like this glacier slowly and unstoppably gobbling up the West Bank. It’s too slow to make the headlines, but fast enough such that a viable Palestine is already out of reach. Israel’s policy here is shrewd and effective. The problem is that the end result is that there will be no viable Palestine. For obvious reasons, Palestinians aren’t happy about that. And I’m not either.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
I’ve always wished Israel well, and I appreciate the animosity they face. But I must agree with this post: Israel’s occupying territory is simply insane. I think Israel should do what it did in Gaza: (1) get out, (2) make it clear that it will respond to attacks from any fopreign soil (which now includes Gaza). But after 40 years, Israelis can’t even agree amongst themselves what territory should be part of Israel and what territory should not be part of Israel. Being an occupier is a no-win situation, and of course is morally appalling. I understand why Israel can’t hand back the West Bank tomorrow (they’d IMMEDIATELY come under rocket fire), but I think they really need to start getting out of the occupied-territory business ASAP.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
I recall it being mentioned that this “Road to Peace” ran through Baghdad because Saddam was encouraging suicide bombers… Now it seems to have shifted a little to the east–funny road this!
February 7th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
The best solution to the Palestinian problem would be the peaceful repatriation of the Palestinians to the trans=Jordan. A reasonable approach is outlined here. Some of the Obama stimulus boondogle could be usefully diverted to sweeten the deal.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Matt: “Officials from the bulk of Arab states are plainly alarmed by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon. But it’s impossible for those countries to form a united front with Israel and the United States as long as the U.S. is helping to finance an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.”
One might suggest that the existence of upwards of 200 nuclear weapons possessed by Israel – which has stated numerous times that they wouldn’t mind using them if provoked – might be more significant than Iran’s NON-EXISTENT nuclear weapons program in preventing Arab states from forming “a united front with Israel and the United States.”
Where do you get this crap, Matt? The Arab world has ZERO interest in forming any united front with Israel and the US, against Iran or anyone else. While the various monarchies and secular dictatorships don’t like the notion of a “Shia crescent”, they don’t like Israel considerably more.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Skeptic, leaving aside your ranting about my “mendacious and reprehensible” post — or possibly my honest but “misguided” lack of understanding — neither you nor pseudonmymous (who I guess in this context I should thank for not calling my character into question) have addressed my point.
My point isn’t that the Palestinians should be happy about Israeli settlements — I certainly wouldn’t be if I were them — nor even that they don’t make it harder for the Palestinians to build a state with sufficient resources, lines of communication and transit, etc. I expect that at least in some cases, perhaps most, they do.
My point is that I don’t see why these facts in any way justify Yglesias’s claim that “it’s impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians as long as they continue to expand settlements.” In particular, to reiterate, since any such deal would by definition include Israeli recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over some territory with defined borders, it would NECESSARILY PREVENT the establishment or expansion of settlements on the sovereign Palestinian territory so recognized.
Which is to say, and I apologize again for belaboring this point, the end of further settlements would be one of the positive outcomes of a negotatiated agreement from the Palestinian perspective.
So if ending settlement activity is an important goal for the Palestinians, as it surely is, then refusing to negotiate a deal because of settlement activity is entirely counterproductive, since a negotiated deal itself would achieve this goal.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Sam: “do you honestly believe that the only thing motivating Isreali policy is a concern about “preserving Jewish character”?”
You don’t listen or read many quotes from the Israeli press, do you? Yes, they ARE concerned about preserving Israel for Jews and Jews only. And the right wing parties that appear to be moving toward control of the government most definitely do.
“Larry Birnbaum, I’m not sure whether your question is honest and misguided, or merely reprehensible and mendacious.”
From past exchanges with Larry, I can confidently say it’s the latter.
Fostert: While it is likely that the Mossad did not plan and carry out 9/11, there’s no doubt that they were FULLY aware of the plan, since they were following the hijackers around for months here in the US. Israel gave the US a warning – about two weeks before the event – just enough time to cover their ass but not enough time to do anything about it, especially given that Cheney and the Israeli government were delirious that it happened since it justified their war on Iraq.
SLC is gonna see the back of his own ear when I cut the fucker off and shove it down his throat. Then he’s gonna see the inside of his own ass when I shove his head up it. Oh, wait – his head is already up his ass.
Never mind.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:26 am
“there’s no doubt that they were FULLY aware of the plan”
I don’t doubt that one bit. Nor did I say Israel was ignorant of it. Hell, our own NSA had a pretty good idea about it. Combine that with the knowledge from the FBI and the CIA, and the plan could easily have been stopped. Too bad they didn’t talk to each other. But I see nothing nefarious in Israel’s lack of communication. If our own intelligence agencies can’t talk to each other, it’s hard to expect others to do so.
“SLC is gonna see the back of his own ear when I cut the fucker off and shove it down his throat.”
I’m with you, but it might be time for your bedtime bongs. Always sleep on it first.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:33 am
The Arabs launched a war of aggression against a legitimate, UN-recognized state in Israel in 1948, and lost. The Pals have been led to believe since then by various actors, most significantly the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia but more recently Iraq and Iran, that the normal rules in such circumstances don’t apply to them. But they do.
I agree with Matt about what needs to be done in terms of dealing directly with the concerns of the Pals, but the centrality of that requirement shouldn’t obscure the fact that there has been very significant input from “outsiders”, including us.
February 8th, 2009 at 4:00 am
Mr. Birnbaum, it is irrelevant to me whether you are stupid or dishonest, your question could come from either source. I have no questions about, and no interest in your character. In regard to your question, on its face, it is either stupid or it is mendacious. The answer is the same, regardless.
Your premise, as I understand it, is that the Palestinians should negotiate a deal now, in order to stop further settlements.
That still leaves the problem of existing settlements. The problem that you have is that for a multitude of reasons which several people have set out, the existing settlements are a barrier to any Palestinian state.
Let me put it in straightforward terms. I break into your house and proceed to rape your daughter. I offer to negotiate a deal with you wherein I have free run of your house and unlimited sexual access to your daughter. Your incentive to have the deal is that I might extend my liberties further. Is this any kind of deal that you could take? While we negotiate, I will continue to exend my liberties to raping your other daughters.
You are failing to recognize the bad faith implicit in expanding settlements while purporting to seek peace. Each settlement, and each expansion, makes a resolution that much more remote.
Now, I really don’t know what your motives are. You have wasted my time. Go away and don’t do it again.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Re fostert
I don’t doubt that one bit. Nor did I say Israel was ignorant of it. Hell, our own NSA had a pretty good idea about it. Combine that with the knowledge from the FBI and the CIA, and the plan could easily have been stopped. Too bad they didn’t talk to each other. But I see nothing nefarious in Israel’s lack of communication. If our own intelligence agencies can’t talk to each other, it’s hard to expect others to do so.
I would say that the state of US intelligence must have been pretty sad indeed if we have to depend on the Mossad for information. We must spend at least 100 times as much on intelligence gathering as Israel does.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Skeptic, your analogy has emotional resonance but isn’t really relevant. Peace treaties are signed between peoples who have been killing each other and have no reason to trust each other, and certainly not to like each other. They are signed because the alternatives are worse. If everyone took your perspective, there’d never be peace between former enemies anywhere.
I understand that the existing settlements make it harder for the Palestinians to get what they want, and that additional settlements make it incrementally harder. All the more reason to get going and negotiate an agreement. You call this “bad faith”: I call it pressure.
Sorry you feel I’ve wasted your time. Feel free not to respond to me in the future.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:13 am
“…it’s impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians as long as they continue to expand settlements…”
‘I’d like to see the logic of this spelled out. Why and how, exactly, do settlements make it impossible for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians?’
To me, it indicates bad faith in negotiations. Makes it appear that all they’re really trying to do is buy time while they gradually squeeze the Palestinians out or fragment their territory to the point that speaking of Palestinian territory becomes meaningless in any practical sense. I think a poster above put it more clearly than I did.
I understand the complaints on both sides in these regards. I can understand Israeli distrust of Hamas as long as there remains the old talk of pushing Israel into the sea. It’s as though there’s no good faith or honest brokerage anywhere.
Discouraging.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:43 am
There really isn’t any point in talking to you, is there Mr. Birnbaum. I continue to give you the benefit of the doubt, but frankly, I don’t care very much.
It’s been explained in great detail that the settlement process makes a two state resolution impossible. Not difficult, impossible. You have deliberately chosen to avoid discussion of the factors, instead falling back on a semantic dodge. I’m not impressed.
If you are arguing merely ‘difficult’, then the onus is on you to demonstrate that a viable Palestinian state is possible in the context of settlements.
You seem to have some notion that ‘this is what the Palestinians want’. I’d argue that this view is shortsighted and deliberately evasive.
‘What do the Palestinians want?’ Essentially, some form of viable redress for their historical repression. You must also ask ‘what does Israel want?” Peace? To steal more land? To keep what it has stolen? If some of Israel’s goals are incompatible with other goals, then Israel must choose.
So far the choices have been bad ones.
And so far, your line of argument has been increasingly disingenuous.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Re skeptic & Larry Birnbaum
Mr. skeptic and Mr. Birnbaum are talking at cross purposes. The Palestinian leadership (particularly Hamas) and presumably the people they lead want the Government of Israel to go out of business. Since the Government of Israel has no intention of going out of business and the Palestinians lack the capability of forcing it to do so, we have an impasse. The impasse will continue until the Palestinian leadership, particularly Hamas, decides that their demand has no chance of acceptance and the demand is dropped.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:40 am
jonbo, but you see, from the Israeli perspective it’s the Palestinians who are dragging their feet getting to an agreement. The outlines of an agreement are clear and have been for at least two decades — and certainly since the negotiations at the end of the Clinton administration — if not longer. A Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with mutual recognition. Some adjustment of the borders in the West Bank and elsewhere to adjust for Israeli settlement and to provide, actually, some layer of depth of defense for Israel in case things go wrong, but not so much adjustment as to make transportation and communication within the Palestinian state impossible. Jerusalem a mish-mosh of control but no Palestinian military forces. An agreement that the Palestinian state will not be militarized to the point of posing a mortal threat to Israel, and some mechanism for border control to ensure that. No return of Palestinian refugees from 1948 or their descendents to Israel, but payment of compensatory restitution.
Does this seem insufficient from a Palestinian perspective? Probably, but it’s pretty much what is available at this point. In my view, the deal hasn’t closed yet because the Palestinians are hoping for more. In fact they’ve been hoping for more since 1948, when they should have taken the much better deal then on the table. But there isn’t any more. So really there’s no point in not coming to a deal sooner rather than later. Of course from their perspective, what’s the harm in waiting?
So I view the shoe as on the other foot. Settlements don’t show bad faith. Failing to close the deal shows bad faith. And the reality is that a significant minority of the Palestinian population — perhaps even a majority — doesn’t really want to close the deal that’s available.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Mr. Birnbaum’s recipe for peace involves substantial territorial concessions of the West Bank in favour of settlements and open ended security purposes. “Some adjustment of the borders in the West Bank and elsewhere to adjust for Israeli settlement and to provide, actually, some layer of depth of defense…”
Hence, Mr. Birnbaum would slice off even more territory than the settlements now encroach upon.
His idea of a compromise is “but not so much adjustment as to make transportation and communication within the Palestinian state impossible.”
That’s a rather specious description. Note that Mr. Birnbaum is setting his bar very carefully. It’s not about whether the adjustments will make a Palestinian state impossible in any meaningful sense. It’s not about whether the adjustments will make transportation and communication within the Palestinian state inordinately difficult or non-viable. No, his bar is to assess whether it would make some limited levels of function impossible. I don’t know that this is a viable test.
And more to the point, even on Mr. Birnbaum’s very loose standards, it is not at all clear that it is achievable. The Settlements are scattered throughout the West Bank. It’s not as if they’re lined up along the border. Settlement activity when it expands does not expand along the border, but throughout the West Bank.
To make territorial adjustments in favour of settlements would amount to ceding critically vital economic and strategic territory within the West Bank. To sustain such settlements, Israel would require further territorial concessions and licenses. The result is a patchwork quilt of Palestinian enclaves within the West Bank.
As pointed out, the result would be less of a state, and more a series of ghettos, concentration camps, reservations or bantustans.
Mr. Birnbaum’s ‘peace solution’ as he proposes it amounts to a Palestinian non-state. His logic is that the Palestinians show bad faith in not agreeing to a piecemeal subordinate non-state. He feels that the Palestinians need to be punished until they come to their senses.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
@ Larry Birnbaum.
Why should the Palestinians accept a shit deal? Unlike the North American Indians, they have a demographic projections on their side.
You can corral the natives into fenced enclosures if you want. But please don’t act surprised when a few flaming arrows come your way. And don’t expect the world to cheer you on either.
Who would really root for the 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn? Personally, I hope Custer gets toppled from his horse and scalped.
I think you are making a reasonable argument from the perspective of an Israeli negotiator, but realistically, why expect the Palestinians “close the deal” when settlements are riddling their future state and it is clear that the Israeli political establishment has no will to dismantle them (we’re talking small cities here) not a few shacks on a hilltop).
February 8th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Since you answered me, Skeptic, I guess it isn’t such a waste of time to talk. I appreciate that, actually — no irony intended.
Look, obviously there’s going to have to be a lot of trade-offs made in the details of any final agreement. Please don’t pick on a term like “impossible” to argue that I’m envisioning an outcome in which the resulting Palestinian state is barely functional. If I were the Palestinians, I wouldn’t agree with such an outcome either. Therefore it isn’t viable in a negotiating sense, let alone any other.
Just as obviously, Israel settlements not contiguous with Israel and reasonably close to the 1948 Armistice line would have to be evacuated if an agreement were reached. And please don’t pick on the term “reasonably” here. That’s precisely what needs to be negotiated, you know. So let the negotiations commence as quickly as possible, and don’t use Israeli settlements as an excuse for not negotiating.
Two additional comments. First, the reality of the current situation is extremely unpromising. The Palestinians won’t even negotiate with each other right now. It isn’t clear who can credibly negotiate on their behalf and they aren’t making a lot of progress towards resolving that question. You can blame Israel if it makes you feel better but at the end of the day there isn’t a whole lot Israel can do to resolve this issue for the Palestinians. It’s the Palestinians who must take responsibility for their leadership and governance.
Second, references to “concentration camps” are entirely uncalled for. Concentration camps were places where people — Jews, but not only Jews — were imprisoned prior to being systematically exterminated in the millions. It’s not just ridiculous to compare these situations, its disrespectful to the millions of people who lost their lives in actual genocides, in World War II, since then, and even before. And bringing it up in the context of Israel isn’t just disrespectful — it’s hurtful. To me, for example, since most of my extended family was murdered. To many people in Israel for exactly the same reason. It doesn’t promote discussion or reconciliation, it shuts it down.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
OK, “concentration camps” is off the table and feelings have been hurt. Let’s call them fenced bantustans instead. Moving on with the discussion…
February 8th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Adrian, you’re right, from a Palestinian perspective it’s a shit deal. And you’re also right, they think time — demographics — are on their side. In fact, that’s why they’re dragging their feet. And that’s where the settlements come in. Is it a shit deal now? Well, it’s certainly a lot shittier than it was in 1948. It’s shitter than it was in 2000. In fact, it’s getting shittier every day they don’t close the deal.
So I think you’ve absolutely put your finger on a lot of the logic (if you can call it that) of the situation.
As to the question of whether an Israeli government would ever have the political strength to evacuate non-contiguous settlements inside the West Bank — let’s put that to the test, shall we? Again, let’s not use what it is that needs to be negotiated as an excuse not to negotiate.
This, finally to get back to my original point, is what I objected to in Yglesias’s initial post.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Mr. Birnbaum, it is a waste of time to talk to you. And you are in fact wasting my time. I say this without any rancor whatsoever. It’s just one of those facts.
However, if you insist on cluttering up the thread with toxic nonsense, then my choices are to remain silent in the face of, if not evil, then mendacious idiocy, which would be taken by some as an endorsement, or to step up and call nonsense out for what it is.
If a poster appeared here and claimed that the Holocaust never happened, I would be forced to respond that this was dishonest nonsense, and set out clearly that they were wrong.
I am, by the same token, forced to respond to you. I don’t feel particularly happy about it.
Just as obviously, Israel settlements not contiguous with Israel and reasonably close to the 1948 Armistice line would have to be evacuated if an agreement were reached. And please don’t pick on the term “reasonably” here. That’s precisely what needs to be negotiated, you know. So let the negotiations commence as quickly as possible, and don’t use Israeli settlements as an excuse for not negotiating.
What exactly are you contemplating being negotiated here? Peace, or the parameters of further territorial encroachment?
Your notion of negotiation seems to contemplate that the Palestinians must agree to further undefined territorial concessions… in return for which… what? That Israel will relinquish additional territorial expropriations? That Israel will rationalize its territorial expropriations? What does this have to do with peace?
Your statements clearly imply that in your view, there is nothing wrong with continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank, both in number and population. It is clear from your view that continuing to expand settlements justifies further territorial encroachment and expropriation, which you see as a motivating factor for the Palestinians “Negotiate now, Dogs, while you’ve got any land left!”
But surely you must recognize the hypocrisy of your position. Negotiating territorial concessions while continually expanding the framework for territorial expropriations is not a framework for success.
You are continually oblivious on several points.
You are deliberately selectively acknowledging the political impact of settlements and settlers. On the one hand, you see settlements and settlers as the basis for territorial concessions by the Palestinians. On the other hand, you have this notion that with ‘rationalized concessions’ outlying settlements can simply be wound up and shut down.
I don’t think that follows. I don’t see any will on the part of Israel’s polity to force the sort of confrontations needed to remove any settlements. The removal of a trivial number of settlers from Gaza was a major political trauma. The removal of settlers from ‘outlying’ areas of the West Bank would be exponentially more difficult. And it becomes increasingly difficult the more settlement expands.
Your willful ignorance of the political weight of settlers within the Israeli political sphere is one of the things that make me see your posts as disingenuous.
But this is not the only tactic that you employ which implies argumentative mendacity rather than good faith discourse.
Another is your tendency to change the subject. Without dealing with any of the arguments or issues on the table, you attempt to fog matters by throwing up new issues.
“It’s the Palestinians who must take responsibility for their leadership and governance”
ie – the old saw that Israel cannot negotiate with the Palestinians because there is no one to negotiate with.
Is there anyone to negotiate with on the Israeli side? Sharon, a man whose history included the massacre of villages, cross border assassination, the execution of prisoners of war, the invasion of Lebanon, collusion in massacres of Palestinian refugee camps, and triggering the 2nd Intifada and a host of other maneuvers. Netanhyu? Ohlmert? I see no real commitment or interest in peace among the dominant Israeli politicians. Nor is there any willingness in the Knesset to seek peace or even to exercise any control over the settlement movement.
Who is it that the Palestinians are supposed to make peace with? The same Israeli’s who gloat to each other that the Palestinian state is in ‘formaldehyde.’
Of course, this part of the discussion is entirely irrelevant. You only raise it because you cannot and will not rationally discuss the settlement issue.
And of course, like the famed Russian dolls, we were only discussing the settlement issue because you’re unwilling to bring any integrity to a discussion of Iran.
So what are we to do with you?
Your other mendacious tactic is recurring resort to emotional histrionics. You accused me early on of ranting. Most lately, you’ve raised an emotional objection to the use of the term ‘concentration camp.’
Having no useful rational argument, you simply reach for an emotional trump. Rather childish. But I suppose that this sort of petty gamesmanship has worked for you in the past.
Well, sorry. But ‘concentration camps’, reservations, bantuststans, and ghettoes are appropriate terms in this discussion.
And we’ll do well without your transparently false emotional posturing.
February 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Jeez, I’m sorry that you feel obligated to answer what you call my “toxic nonsense,” my “mendacious idiocy” bordering perhaps on “evil,” and comparable in your mind to Holocaust denial.
You compared the current tragic situation to one in which someone is raping another man’s daughter while negotiating ownership of the house. You describe my assessment of the situation as one in which the Israelis are practically snarling at the Palestinians, “Negotiate now, Dogs, while you’ve got any land left!”
And yet, in your mind, I am the one who has “resort[ed] to emotional histrionics.”
I never used this kind of language in my comments to describe the situation on the ground. Nor did I ever characterize your comments as “mendacious,” “evil,” or comparable to Holocaust denial. I cannot imagine why you think this kind of language is either acceptable or useful. Maybe it makes you feel better to vent like this, but it doesn’t change a thing.
In answer to the question of who the Palestinians are supposed to negotiate with, followed by a listing of Sharon’s “crimes,” some real, some imagined, as I believe Rabin said in this context, you don’t negotiate with your friends, you negotiate with your enemies. So, flat-footedly, they should negotiate with the duly elected government of Israel. That’s who will have the uncontested responsibility and authority to negotiate and implement any agreement. Perhaps you wish there were someone else for the Palestinians to negotiate with. But, factually, that’s who there is. You can call down any curses you wish upon their heads, it doesn’t make a difference.
By the way, you might be tempted to raise the question here, why doesn’t Israel negotiate with Hamas? If Hamas agrees to negotiate with Israel over a two-state resolution of the conflict, and agrees to uphold previous Palestinian commitments, then they should. So far, Hamas hasn’t shown much interest in this idea. But you never know.
Finally, since you explicitly continue to use the term “concentration camp” in this context, let me say simply that in my view its use in this way is hate speech.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Jeez, I’m sorry that you feel obligated to answer what you call my “toxic nonsense,” my “mendacious idiocy”
Unfortunately, you don’t feel badly enough to stop inflicting it upon the thread. On the other hand, your latest offering seems to merely be some muddy spottering on your wounded vanity. I really have to wonder: If you have nothing to say, why do you keep blithering?
February 8th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I think Birnbaum is actually a sensible person, he at least theoretically supports a two state solution. He is just lawyering for Israel as I would expect an Israel-supporter to do.
What I think he does not realize is that Israel is going to lose. It will not be defeated militarily but it will collapse under the weight of its own international illegality and moral iniquity, probably within the next three decades. Certainly it will not survive the 21st century. The question is: how will the “Jewish Democratic State” exit history? I think the best way for Jews and Arabs alike, is through a cooperative dismantling of the Apartheid system. The alternative is violent and cataclysmic.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Adrian, I understand your position. It’s not illogical, notwithstanding the introduction of tendentiouos analogies such as “Apartheid” and pejoratives like “international illegality” and “moral iniquity.”
Let me simply say this: Zionism is the political self-determination of the Jews in Israel. Which is to say, Israel isn’t asking anyone’s permission to be what it is, any more than France, and follows its self-interest as every other state. You raise the specter of a violent cataclysm. Let’s hope not.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Well, I agree with you, Larry. Zionists have one of the strongest cases for a national project since the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the gentiles has been so extraordinary. As with anti-colonial struggles, the case for a “national liberation movement” is emotionally compelling and psychologically understandable from a Jewish point of view.
The problem is that the rather recent 19th century nationalist ideal upon which Zionism was founded, that the peoples of the world (previously a collection of loose tribal, ethnic, religious and language groups living as subjects of monarchical states and transnational dynastic empires) will each form discrete “nations” with their own states, flags national languages and even collective national souls, has always been bullshit.
You bring up France. France is much like Israel in that its nationalists screaming “France for the French” cannot come to terms with their own impending obsolescence. Does France’s unquestionable “right to exist” mean that the French state has the right to pursue a demographic policy of maintaining a French majority? What does Frenchness even mean? It takes a lot of imagination to argue that a Jew from Brooklyn, a Jew from Morocco and a Jew from Ethiopia are really somehow a part of one nation and each have a “birthright” to claim their respective clumps of dirt in Palestine. It is a fantasy that cannot survive the realities of modern population movements and global capitalism.
There are no such things as nations. Humans do not have ancient homelands. We all live in diaspora.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Adrian, I appreciate your comments.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
In that sense, Israel’s problem is that it’s genesis in terms of establishing its land base by forcibly dispossessing another people of theirs poses a paradox.
WWII and the Holocaust is the triggering event which justifies Israel’s zionist ambition. It’s also the triggering event which forever repudiated rights of conquest.
A hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, the only restriction on the legitimacy of genocide, ethnic cleansing, wars of conquest, and the displacement and dispossession of ínferior peoples’was the power of the aggressor state to accomplish its goals.
This lead directly to the philosophy of the Nazi’s. And it lead directly to the repudiation of that philosophy.
Israel exists by virtue of theft, murder and ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, the people that it has dispossessed, while scattered, remain a people. Basically, it’s stolen land.
It’s not as if there’s ample precedent for a the members of a displaced nation retaining culture and character. This defines the Jews themselves, the Roma, even more recently the Acadians. There’s no reason to think that the Palestinians exiles will cease to exist as a national community. Nor is there any reason to think that they will readily abandon or surrender their claim.
Israel compounds its problem of legitimacy by occupying and continually encroaching on the West Bank and Gaza and the subject peoples thereon. Oppresion, slavery, ghettoes, concentration camps or apartheid are not really a foundation for positive development.
Indeed, the Settler movement undermines Israel’s legitimacy in a number of ways. The settlements are clearly illegal in international law, and even somewhat under Israeli law. They are part and parcel of an effort to steal yet more land, a factor endorsed by people like Birnbaum. This naked little display of greed and hatred points a little too clearly at the underlying illegitimacy of Israel’s ‘home’territory.
Now, Israel exists, and that very existence confers its right to continue to exist. But Israel’s existence does not cancel out prior rights, nor does it negate the various rights of Palestinians.
This is the big existential problem for Israel: How does it reconcile itself with the Palestinians.
And before that problem can be dealt with, there is an insurmountable barrier: Israel feels no need to reconcile with the Palestinians, because currently, its situation is as one sided and advantageous as it can get. Any political movement forward, any effort, is only costs and concessions. There’s no appetite for that. When you’re at the top of a mountain, every path forward leads down.
Ergo, Israel’s goal is to maintain the present unmaintainable situation indefinitely for as far into the future as it can. Israel’s ‘peace plan’ such as it is, is simply a matter of attempting to consolidate an oppressive and lopsided status quo. ie, ‘Formaldehyde.’
People like Birnbaum eagerly contemplate a ‘peace’ based on a Palestinian entity composed of a patchwork of self managed, well run, concentration camps, occupied by legal subhumans which either service the Israel economy or are simply removed from Israel and world affairs. It’s a charming vision, but not actually supportable.
To be honest, I really don’t have a lot of hope for the future. Any genuine resolution will require Israel to do the right thing. Whatever that is, its cost in financial terms, political or territorial concessions is more than Israel is prepared to endure.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I love this abridged version of history:
“The Arabs launched a war of aggression against a legitimate, UN-recognized state in Israel in 1948, and lost. The Pals have been led to believe since then by various actors, most significantly the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia but more recently Iraq and Iran, that the normal rules in such circumstances don’t apply to them. But they do.”
There wasn’t much legitimate about that UN process. AIPAC founder Si Kenen skulking around behind the UN fact finding team to the Middle East, trying to interest reporters in photos of child labor—then leaking classified info on Haj Amin’s dalliances with the Nazis with the help of the Nation Magazine (while keeping secret the Zionist accommodations in the Transfer Agreement)—hell, the Arabs didn’t even participate in most of the UN process!
That’s the kind of hand the Palestinians get, dealt from a stacked deck and a smirking dealer.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:23 am
The above post is correct and SLC’s is, as usual, full of shit.
There was nothing “legal” about the UN partition of Palestine, as the UN’s own commission set up to study that point concluded.
Even Harry Truman was outraged at the pressure being put on him by American Zionists.
Basically, Israel was established due to the same sort of terrorism that Al Qaeda is being condemned for today. As a Jewish MP in Parliament said recently, “Israel was born out of terrorism” and is acting like the Nazis today – and he was personal friends with all the leaders of Israel as well as Arafat.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Adrian: nations and nation states exist, and they seem to persist very well, EVEN in France.
EU has a rather Byzantine structure. Actually, since it is vastly more opaque than whatever Romans invented on the shores of Bosphorus, a new adjective is needed. Even so, it is a tremendous balancing act keeping together quite assertive nation states and the connecting bureaucracy.
The problem of Israel is that it developed a rather peculiar form of nation state, one that I call “New Sparta”.
Birbaum: I understand that the existing settlements make it harder for the Palestinians to get what they want, and that additional settlements make it incrementally harder. All the more reason to get going and negotiate an agreement. You call this “bad faith”: I call it pressure.
Larry, are you describing Israel as is, or as it should be? Settlements are the center of the “New Sparta” project. To have a unified national spirit, with martial zeal etc. you need something more than sober bean counting. Settlements are the romantic project, return the the roots, toughness, dominance, it is not a calculated token gesture.
God gave white men of Calvinist persuasion a mission to keep the elected people as masters of South Africa. They were the only truly civilized country in the region, and, not surprisingly, the only democracy. Yes, they had to do some shit to keep the lesser people in check, but if we make the balance, it is hard to see why comparing Israel to the Apartheid state is unfavorable FOR Israel. (By the way, did you know that Afrikaners survived concentration camps, a British invention, so they could profit from the experience and organize something bit similar, Bantustans?)
February 9th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Perfect, Piotr gives us a truly racist, pro-Apartheid defense of Israel. And indeed, Zionism will share Apartheid’s destiny: the ash can of history.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
To the extent that anything is legal, Israel’s founding was. Truman, along with the entire Security Council and a majority of the other world leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain went on record to that effect in the only forum remotely authoritative on the subject.
But hey, Richard “Iran will be bombed in 2007″ Steven “Sadr will sweep the Iraqi elections” the Hack says Israel Lobby Archive’s pathetic babble “is correct”. What a surprise.
Just what we need–a felon’s view on what’s legal.
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