Lieberman Argues for Settlement Expansion
Via Faiz Shakir, it seems that Joe Lieberman appeared on Bloomberg and joined efforts by congressional hawks to bail Bibi Netanyahu out of his clash with the United States government by putting pressure on Barack Obama to back off his opposition to settlement expansion:
I thought the focus on the President’s direct call in that speech in Cairo for the Israelis to freeze all settlement activity — including the ‘natural growth‘ of settlements that everybody agrees are no longer settlements — …that was risky in the sense that it may lead listeners to believe that the main reason there is not an Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is the Israeli settlement policy.
I don’t think I would call the settlement freeze the “focus” of Obama’s Cairo speech, but he did focus on the need for both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict to live up to their commitments. Israel has previously promised to halt settlement activity, and while halting settlement activity is hardly the only barrier to peace, I think it’s clear enough that a cessation of Israeli land grabs is a necessary condition for peace.
Lieberman’s reference to “settlements that everybody agrees are no longer settlements” appears to refer to West Bank settlements built near the Green Line that more-or-less have the character of suburbs of Jerusalem. Israel hopes to annex most or all of these settlements in a final peace agreement. And perhaps some of them will be annexed. But the unilaterally decide that some settlements can and should be expanded because they’re “no longer settlements” is just a naked effort to prejudge the issue and circumvent the diplomatic process.
Meanwhile, if you look at a map you can see that while the built-up footprint of some of these “suburban” settlements is quite small, the municipal boundaries of the settlements are extremely expansion. Allowing for the “natural growth” of the settlements would entail cutting off the Arab portion of Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, displacing Bedouin from surrounding desert areas, and in effect making any kind of peace involving shared access to Jerusalem impossible. In other words, though “natural growth” of some existing blocs may sound like a small thing in the scheme of things, it would in fact shortly doom any hopes of reaching a realistic negotiated settlement.
28 Responses to “Lieberman Argues for Settlement Expansion”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 13th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
There are not settlements that everyone agrees are no longer settlements. There are just settlements that jewish colonial bigots want to maintain. And the use of the word ‘everyone’ in this context only prompts the thought that Lieberman needs to travel a bit more widely. All 400,000 jewish settlers on the land conquered in 1967 will have to go in the end.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Settlements undermine the security of Israel because they make a Two State Solution less likely. Mr. Liberman is objectively serving the interests of Mr. Qadhafi and his absurd ‘Isratine’ proposal, and should be considered an objective enemy of Jewish security. Israel needs to dismantle the settlements by force, and show the settlers who’s boss.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Sign the Editor for Yglesias petition!
June 13th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
What are the non-religious reasons given for expensions and colonization? Because all I’ve ever heard is Abraham this and that.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I think that someone who ran against Lieberman and frankly said that Lieberman defended the interests of one sector of Israeli society against (a) the majority of that society and (b) the interests of his own country would win a solid majority, even among Connecticut’s Jews.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
What are the non-religious reasons given for expensions and colonization? Because all I’ve ever heard is Abraham this and that.
The non-religious reasons are “Might makes right.” A philosophical principle which considerably predates Abraham.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Here’s the map This is from 2002 and in the period since then (like in all periods since the 1967 war) the number of settlers and settlements have mushroomed so a current map would almost certainly show further Israeli infiltration.
Basically if the settlements don’t go away the best the Israelis can offer the Palestinians is a bunch of disconnected blobs surrounded by Israel. No Palestinian would ever accept that deal, meaning there will be no second state. If there are not two states then there’s gonna be one, and it will be majority Arab. End of Israel, end of Zionism, end of story, and the Israelis will have no one to blame but themselves for their situation. If you want a Jewish majority state, and you also want to take over an area full of Arabs, and then you start wondering where all the Arabs came from and what happened to your Jewish state, then you’re beyond help.
The map shows just how difficult this would be. I find that when pro-Israeli people actually see the map they often change their mind; so many don’t have any idea just how extensive Israeli domination of the West Bank is. Of course this map doesn’t show roadblocks which also suck.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
And where does the expansion of these “non-settlements” take place? On “non-Palestinian” land? Joe Lieberman’s position is absurd, but not because of Matt Yglesias’ reasons. Just like the settlements themselves, any expansion thereof takes place on land that either belongs to Palestinian owners or is part of the land reserve necessary for the livelihood of Palestinian communities. Where settlers build, and far beyond it, Palestinians cannot live, work, raise crops or herd their livestock. This is just as true for the settlement blocks as it is true for the outposts. It is dangerous to speak of such issues as though they are primarily important because of their political impact. These are human rights issues: all the settlements, what has been built and what will be built, violate basic human rights and harm actual people. They are blatant acts of robbery and theft. Lieberman’s stance is premised on viewing Palestinians as non-entities and their needs as immaterial, as compared to the needs of Israeli Jews in the settlements. It is a horrifying position.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Lieberman, the poster child for how corrupt and undemocratic the modern Senate has become. In any other democratic country this traitor would have walked the plank after the 2008 election. Instead he gets to chair a committee and tell us regularly on the TV what he thinks. Because if you are a Senator, being wrong about everything and smearing your own party means you get rewarded.
settlements that everybody agrees are no longer settlements
Everybody from Joe Lieberman to AIPAC and the Likud. The rest of the world disagrees.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Ariel Sharon always said that having an Israeli presence on hilltops, overlooking strategic valleys, etc. would help protect Israel proper against further Arab invasions, basically acting like a buffer zone/tripwire/whatever. There were always several problems with this argument though; why not just put military bases on the hilltops? Wouldn’t putting a bunch of civilians in harm’s way endanger them? Why does Israel need a tripwire in the West Bank and Gaza but not anywhere else (south Lebanon, for example)? The secular types who argued for settlements had military justifications, and probably agreed that Israel did need defending since it’s so thin down the middle, but basically they wanted the land in the West Bank especially. Partly the thicken the country’s waist and push invading armies further away from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, partly because the Zionists were settlers prior to 1948 and right wingers like Sharon had a lot of admiration for the settlers in the territories, partly because of racism towards Arabs, partly pandering to the settlers (who of course could vote in Israeli elections) and a few other reasons.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Zionism needs to be marginalized the way the KKK and the Aryan Nation are. Then and only then things will change for the better.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
it may lead listeners to believe that the main reason there is not an Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is the Israeli settlement policy.
Oh, the horror. People might actually come to an accurate conclusion, instead of continuing to believe that it’s all those nasty Palestinians’ fault for not wanting to live on a disjoint network of scraps Israel didn’t think were worth stealing.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Re abb1
Shorter abb1: Bibi = Hitler, Lieberman = Eichmann.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Spokeytown,
Precisley.
SLC,
Abolishing the settlements by armed force is necessary in order to maintain Israel as a Jewish majority state. If you support the settlements then you are objectively aiding the cause of a one state solution and the death of Israel.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
An analogy:
In 1967 an executor is given the power to administer the assets of a trust. In the next 42 years he plunders those assets, transferring a substantial portion of them to himself.
When the moment of truth arrives, the executor says he can’t return those assets because they are such an integral part of his net worth.
Would any one, anywhere, take that position seriously?
June 13th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
That’s one of the Big Problems in the Two-State Negotiations, and one of the issues that prevented Barak and Arafat from reaching an agreement in 2000 (neither felt they could give up East Jerusalem). Right now, most of the settlement blocs “ring” Jerusalem, and make any type of idea of a continguous Palestinian state having East Jerusalem impossible.
This, by the way, is why I’m skeptical that they’ll ever really reach a Two-State Solution. The Palestinian leadership can’t give up East Jerusalem, and neither can the Israelis. At best, they’ll work out some incredibly complicated arrangement to share the holy sites and so forth.
The reasons given are “Security concerns”. They basically say that Israel is this tiny state amidst dangerous enemies, and they need as much strategically important land as possible between them and those enemies. That’s why they started settling the Golan Heights after conquering them from Syria, and why (in the period when they controlled the Sinai Peninsula) they started allowing settlements there as well.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Over 100 illegal nukes and the most advanced military weapons are not enough; Israel really needs those hilltops to feel secure against the vast brown barbaric armies at their borders.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I’ve seen this movie before. IIRC, it was called Manifest Destiny.
When I look at the trajectory, I see no future for the Palestinians. Whatever the particulars of any Israeli’s position re the ’settlements’, the statistical effect is all in one direction. The strong emotion, and willingness to act, is on the side of expansion. Net, Israeli policy is “settlements forever.”
Further, by any measure, they have the power to do that. Israel is far better organized, has far more money, arms, intellectual resources, and a powerful network of support in the world.
My question: if this picture is accurate, is there anything that can be done to ameliorate the Palestinians’ suffering in the process – to avoid another ‘Trail of Tears’? A good starting point would be (IMO) for Israeli society to acknowledge what its own (de facto) intentions. That might be the start of an honest discussion.
June 13th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
@18, in fact, Zionist project is on extremely shaky grounds these day. They had been growing by importing cannon fodder from all over the world, most recently (1990s) from Eastern Europe and former USSR. But now it’s all over; they don’t publicize it, but I suspect they now have negative growth of pro-Zionist ethnically-desirable population. A bit of economic, diplomatic and/or security problem – and the Ashkenazi population is likely to start fleeing; they don’t really want to live in a Middle-Eastern country; they prefer New York, London, and Paris. Racist frenzy can’t be sustained forever, little by little it itself becomes a problem, people get tired of it. And should exodus begin – that’s it, they will all leave. And that’ll be the end of it.
June 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Lieberman’s first loyalty is to Likud, not the US.
June 13th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
“settlements that everybody agrees are no longer settlements”
Hey Joe, that “everyone” is only the AIPAC lobbyist whispering in you ear.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Re Brett @ 16
That’s one of the Big Problems in the Two-State Negotiations, and one of the issues that prevented Barak and Arafat from reaching an agreement in 2000 (neither felt they could give up East Jerusalem).
Mr. Brett is seriously in error. The thing that killed the proposed deal in 2000 was the failure of the Fakestinians to give up their demand that the folks living in refugee camps be resettled in Israel. That’s the real deal killer.
June 13th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
# 19 abb1:
From your pc to God’s ear, to coin a phrase.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:17 am
One of my largest pet peeves is the idea that if something is natural then it is good. Its a rhetorical mode that piggy backs on half held notions of Rousseauian philosophy. There is no such thing as natural growth of settlements. They do not have seeds that flow with the wind and all of sudden grow in the desert.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Given that the entire Zionist enterprise was aimed at displacing the existing population and taking over the entire country from day one, I’d say quibbling over a few “settlements” is pretty fucking stupid.
Once again, the UN should reverse it’s 1947 decision partitioning Palestine. It should declare both the Fatah/Hamas and Israeli governments null and void. Then it should take the entire territory under its control via a Protectorate, set up a Constitutional Commission, design a secular bi-national state, and hold elections in which no existing Palestinian or Israeli politicians can stand for office (to sideline those with a vested interest in the status quo and the nutcases). Issues about resettlement can be dealt with using existing civil law without regard to the racial demographics of the result.
This is the only solution that is even remotely workable.
June 14th, 2009 at 8:43 am
[...] the decade. The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room » Lieberman won’t back public option on healthcare Lieberman Argues for Settlement Expansion #arkayne { background: transparent; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px 0px; [...]
June 14th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I always step back and grab hold of my wallet any time anyone says “Everyone knows…” or “Everyone agrees…” or variations on that theme.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
If there are not two states then there’s gonna be one, and it will be majority Arab. End of Israel, end of Zionism, end of story, and the Israelis will have no one to blame but themselves for their situation.
Well, that’s not quite true. Majority Arab does not equal Arab controlled unless your state is democratic. If the Israelis take South Africa for a model, they could continue to rule over a more numerous underclass for quite some time. Europe wouldn’t like it, but if the AIPAC lobby is powerful enough, they might keep the U.S. as a backer.
If you want a Jewish majority state, and you also want to take over an area full of Arabs, and then you start wondering where all the Arabs came from and what happened to your Jewish state, then you’re beyond help.
Not true, there are two possible final solutions to the Arab problem (other than granting them equal rights, which really is goodbye Zion): genocide and mass expulsion. Fortunately there have been no serious calls for (let alone attempts at) genocide, but Israel already done half of the mass expulsion, and now just need to keep the refugees from coming back. This is why the right of return is such a contentious issue – if the refugees and their descendants are allowed to move back in, then all the work of the original Zionists ethnically cleansing (luckily for them the term didn’t exist then!) Israel would be undone and it would be full of Arabs again.
The more I think about Israel the more cynical I get. The Israelis clearly aren’t dealing in good faith any more than the 18th century Americans; they want the natives out so they can live on whatever land they want, and any means are acceptable to serve that end. The Palestinian Arabs are prisoners of their own fury and psychologically incapable of walking away even if they had somewhere to go, so they only dream of winning back their homeland from the invaders, and any means are acceptable to serve that end. Other Muslim countries basically just root for their co-religionists, and the rest of the world doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Palestinians but doesn’t want to be seen as dumping on the Jews because of their history, which Zionists exploit by creating ambiguity between Jews and Israel. (In fact, many Jews are content living outside Israel, often in countries that fully protect their equal rights. Zionists don’t want to talk about this, because it both undermines the rationale for having Israel as a refuge for Jews, and demonstrates the injustice of religious states.)
Personally, I favor integration and full human rights for all the humans in the region, and a right of return for the displaced population. (While killing as few people as possible, regardless of their ethnic background or religion.) But there’s no doubt that Israel would not exist in its present form if that happened – since its present form is explicitly slanted toward Jews.