Israel's Hamas, Akiva Eldar's Obituary for Oslo, Adam Shatz's Picture of the Palestinians

My day job has kept me very busy lately, but there are three short points I would like to make before Shabbat enters.

1. Israel’s hamas

Today’s Haaretz headline says it all: Israel Expropriates West Bank Land in Order to Legalize Settlement. How many similar headlines has Haaretz published in the last forty years?The system is simple. Settlers squat on Palestinian land. The settlement is considered to be an "outpost," illegal even by Israeli standards. Then the government confiscates the land on which the settlement sits in order to retroactively legalize the settlement. In Hebrew that is called, le-taher et ha-sheretz, to purify a reptile that is inherently impure. It doesn't work in halakha, Jewish law; it doesn't work it in real life. We sin against the Palestinians, and we lie to ourselves.

That is what we call in Hebrew hamas, the Biblical word for theft and oppression. Israel has ruled the West Bank by force, through theft and oppression. Of course, the thief doesn't agree that it is theft, but it is indeed our hamas.

It is morally and legally indefensible. And as a religious Jew, I believe that Providence will in the end deal justly with the perpetrators and the victims of that hamas. But the Lord helps those who help themselves. It's up to us to begin.

2. If you are a two-stater, this piece by Akiva Eldar is a must read

Akiva Eldar is one of the last serious two-staters in Israel, a believer in the Geneva Initiative. Of course, I have written here many times that the Geneva Initiative does not give the Palestinians a real state. But no matter; Eldar is convinced that this is the way to go.

So when Eldar -- and not Jerry Haber or Ali Abunhimah -- lashes out at Dennis Ross and the fake peace process, you two-staters should read it here...and weep.

If I had one wish, it would be that every so-called liberal Zionist, from Jeremy Ben Ami to Alan Dershowitz and all the people in between, read Eldar's obituary for Oslo.

I take that back -- I will be happy if only Tom Friedman reads it.

2. The Must-Read Article of the Week: Adam Shatz on the Palestinians in the LRB

Finally, the best take on the Palestinians in June 2011 -- including the various groups within Palestine, but not so much those outside Palestine -- is provided by Adam Shatz in a long article in the current London Review of Books here. Some may take objection to some points, but the article is a must-read.

I was particularly interested in the claim that West Bank Palestinians are more inclined to see Israelis as temporary invaders, like the Crusaders, than they were during they were in the halcyon Oslo days -- primarily because they are isolated entirely from Israelis. It seems that the "Iron Wall" actually makes Arabs less likely to accept Israel's existence. Is anybody surprised by that?

Who should read this article? Anybody who thinks Palestinian society is monolithic, that things are getting better for the Palestinians on the West Bank, and who see Fayyad and Fayyadism as the hopeful wave of the future.

In other words, self-deluded Zionists.

Advice for the Next Gaza Flotilla

Let me put my cards on the table. I think that Israel's blockade of Gaza blockade is illegal, has nothing to do with Israel's security, and has everything to do with Israel's desire to control the lives and resources of Palestinians without taking responsibility for their welfare -- and without treating them as equals.

All that said, the present Gaza flotilla, which I support, has left its purpose open to misconstrual by its insistence on bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Its real purpose is to demonstrate the illegality and immorality of the blockade. But, no matter what its expressed intentions are, and despite the fact that the American ship, the "Audacity of Hope," apparently contains no humanitarian aid on it, the focus of the media story has been the aid -- and that plays into the hands of the Israelis, because they can counter that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; that they themselves are prepared to deliver the humanitarian aid to Gazans; that they cannot take any chance that illegal material is being smuggled to Hamas. None of this is true -- the flotilla organizers themselves wish to focus on the questions of freedom of movement and economic freedom -- but to this end the humanitarian aid gets into the way.

Even Gisha, the excellent NGO that monitors the situation in Gaza with respect to access and freedom, wishes to focus on the freedom of movement and freedom to export. They are not very happy that the question of aid has dominated the discourse.

So, here's my proposal to the organizers of the next Gaza flotilla:

Bring to Gaza empty boats.

Install webcams in each cabin to show that it is empty, with members of the crew going in and out. Invite members of the press and the world community to travel on the posts. Heck, invite Prime Minister Netanyahu and any of his cabinet.

Ships that are designed to take out exports in the full light of day cannot be described as a clandestine operation to smuggle in weapons or threatening materials. Israel may want to make the argument that its security is threatened by a healthy economy in Gaza -- in fact, I would love to hear that argument -- but that won't fly with anyone outside the true believers.

On the contrary, such a flotilla would point to the real humanitarian crisis in Gaza -- the inability of Israelis to treat Gazans as fully human, with the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as they enjoy.

Of course, the last thing a Gazan may want to do is to put his person and property in jeopardy by loading up one of the flotilla boats. So this would have to be a symbolic gesture, like publishing the names of all the Gazan students who have been prevented from studying abroad, or the Gazans who have been denied exit visas, or medical attention.

But symbolic gestures are important, too. After all, isn't the Flotilla ultimately a symbolic gesture?

How Big Can the Communal Tent Be?

I recently participated in a conference that dealt with the question of Jewish peoplehood. One of the speakers noted that in the Bible there seem to be two models for the Jewish people, one based on family (Genesis), the other on religion (Exodus).

If one wishes to add to the concept of family the notion of shared historical experience, one gets to the distinction offered by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik between the covenant of fate and the covenant of destiny. According to Rabbi Soloveitchik, the People of Israel was forged initially in Egypt, i.e., prior to Sinai by their shared experience; that was their fate, their looking backward. Sinai provided them with another model of peoplehood, one formed by a covenantal religious community. They looked forward to a shared religious destiny. One could be a member of the former community without signing on to the latter community. Through this distinction Rabbi Soloveitchik broadened the Jewish community beyond that of a community determined by religion.

Even a family often has its renegades. At the conference we discussed texts dealing with various categories of social deviance in the Jewish tradition, apostate, heretic, sabbath-violator, etc. Because the conference was under the auspices of a liberal institution, there was sympathy for the inclusive position that you can be a member of the tribe, even a member of the tribe in good standing, without affirming theological doctrines or observing Jewish law. There was little sympathy for doctrinal litmus tests. What mattered was whether you consciously distanced yourself from the community – like the wicked of the four sons in the Passover Haggadah, who excludes himself from the community and hence is criticized (but he is still there at the Seder.)

The institution sponsoring the conference is now engaged in a big project that will attempt to “civilize” discourse on Israel among American Jewish groups and individuals. Whether you are J Street or Z Street, Peace Now or ZOA, there should be some respectful communal space in which the dialogue can continue, according to those involved with the project.

Will the institution decide that there are limits to this inclusiveness? Will it say that groups and individuals can take no steps, or support no polices, that threatens Israel’s well-being in any way (such as asking Justin Bieber to cancel his concert). Will Jews be able to support criticism of Israel from gentile quarters. What of those who question the merit of the Zionist regime founded in 1948? What of the position that gives he Palestinian refugees the choice to return to their homes? Does one have to be a Zionist, or, at the very least, not speak in public about reservations from Zionism? Can you question whether Israel has been good for the Jewish people. Can you suggest that its actions provide fertile ground for anti-Semitism? Must criticism of Israel, when offered, be discrete and loving.

I know many committed liberal Jews who are usually tolerant of all sorts of Jewish doctrinal deviations. Yet they become intolerant Torquemadas when they talk about leftwing Jewish critics of Israel, even those who are motivated by their Judaism to criticize Israel’s policies. Why is this the case? I think that there are three answers. First, the image of a weak Israel surrounded by the powerful Arabs has become so central to the identity of many American Jews (the ones who care!) that they literally believe that Israel faces serious external existential threats. Now this is truly one of the most ridiculous claims on the face of the earth, but when it comes to your existence or the existence of your loved ones, the liberal mask often drops. Even if they are intensely uncomfortable with Israel’s actions, they are afraid that their criticism will be used to weaken the Jewish state significantly (cf. Elie Wiesel.) Add to this the claim that the survival of the Jewish people depends upon Israel – not a ridiculous claim, just one completely without basis – and you understand the vehemence of those attempts to exclude and delegitimize the critics of Israel.

What galls Jews most is the forging of alliances outside the Jewish community, especially with Arabs and with liberal Christians. How many times have I been told, “Jerry, you have some good criticisms, but you have to understand that they are being manipulated and exploited by anti-Semites’? Or: “Your support of the Global BDS Movement means that you support those people who want to throw Jews into the sea.” My answer to that is to say that I don’t endorse people; I endorse principles, and there is nothing in the principles of the Global BDS Movement that is remotely connected by any stretch of the imagination with throwing Jews into the sea – in fact, to suggest otherwise is the height of bigotry. And if there were people in the movement who were anti-Semitic, so what? Do I have to agree with every thing anybody says who supports some of the principles I support?

I have yet to hear somebody say that one cannot be pro-settlement because Christian evangelicals view settlement activity as a necessity step in the conversion of the Jews. I think it would be inappropriate for a Jews to be pro-settlement for that reason, and whether one wishes to form coalitions with such people is an open question.

I have been asked whether, in the name of tolerance of Jewish viewpoints, I would give Jews for Jesus a place at the communal table. Or Jews for the Lubavicher Rebbe. These are good questions, and there are no easy answers. Groups always draw lines; I am not against that. I am against making Zionism and support of Israel into such a dogma that those who question it are shunned as heretics, and their organizations booted. To change that situation, there are concrete steps that these individuals and organizations should take. Here is what I suggest:

1. Keep trying to engage, and when the other side refuses to play, be prepared to embarrass them publically.

2. Keep making the arguments within and without the Jewish community against the dogmas

3. Make your case civilly and respectfully, understanding that your opponent is driven by fear and tribalism. Take those fears seriously.

4. Try not to become a one-issue Jew. It’s not that this is illegitimate; it simply detracts from your effect. People are complicated, and I have found that I have things in common with the most rightwing Jews, even those who read this blog. That shouldn’t be important but it is…if you are family.

The New Yale Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism Hopes to Be Scholarly – For a Change

I have been in academia for over thirty years, and I never saw anything as fast as Yale’s damage control over its decision to axe the Yale Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism. After a little over a week of there being – God forbid – no plan for a center for the study of anti-Semitism at Yale, a new center was announced.

This blog was one of the harshest critics of YIISA. It couldn’t understand how a great institution like Yale could lend its name to an advocacy group that dealt in Islamaphobia. (Maybe it should have been called, the “Yale Indisciplinary Initiative for the Support of Anti-Semitism” ).

In what follows, please pay attention to the following paragraph, by Charles Small, the discredited director of the now-defunct Initiative, who comments on the fiasco of a conference that he helped plan:

Small blamed radical Islamic and extreme left wing bloggers for the bad publicity the conference got. He pointed out that it was the largest conference on antisemitism ever, and it would have been absurd for the conference to ignore Muslim antisemitism.

Who says the blogosphere has no impact? Small continues:

“It appears that Yale, unlike YIISA, is not willing to engage in a comprehensive examination of the current crisis facing living Jews, but instead is comfortable with reexamining the plight of Jews who perished at the hands of antisemites,” Small said. “The role of a true scholar and intellectual is to shed light where there is darkness, which is why we at YIISA are committed to critical engaged scholarship with a broader approach to the complex, and at times controversial context of contemporary global antisemitism.”

Sociology Professor Jeffrey Alexander, a member of the YIISA faculty governance committee, said that Small’s use of the phrase “engaged scholarship” revealed YIISA's focus on politics over scholarship. YIISA was "definitely" too political, in his view, which reduced its appeal to the broader Yale population, causing it to fail the review of its academic standards.

“The reason [for YIISA’s lack of success] was that it was political, had a strong political orientation,” Alexander said. “[This orientation] was to defend the policies of the current conservative government [of Israel], and the whole post ‘67 tendency of Israel’s foreign policy, which is to occupy conquered territories, to continue the settlement movement.”

He said that Small saw antisemitism scholarship as a tool to discredit Arab critics of Israeli foreign policy. Small disagreed, telling the News Thursday that YIISA never had a political agenda. He cited the wide variety of ideologies and opinions among YIISA faculty as evidence that the initiative was not singlemindedly Zionist.

That last line is ridiculous. The whole thrust of that conference was singlemindedly Zionist. He should say, who were the non-Muslims participating who were not staunch supporters of Israel.

Here’s the article from today’s Yale Daily News:

Yale's replacement for the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism, the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, aims to have a more scholarly focus than its predecessor, which has been called too political for an academic environment.

Yale announced in early June that YIISA would not continue because it lacked sufficient academic interest from students and faculty, prompting public outcry from newspaper columnists and Jewish groups such as the Anti-Discrimination League. In its place, Yale will introduce YPSA, Provost Peter Salovey announced in a Sunday email.

YSPA will aim to bring a renewed scholarly focus to the study of antisemitism, Salovey told the News Tuesday. The new program will be headed by Professor Maurice Samuels, director of graduate studies for the French department and an expert on French Jews.

“I’m very impressed with what Professor Samuels has planned for YPSA and think it will attract many of our faculty members due to its scholarly focus on both historical and contemporary issues,” Salovey said.

Though administrators maintain that they decided to discontinue YIISA because it was not supporting enough faculty research or student courses, critics have accused Yale of canceling YIISA because it focused on combatting Muslim antisemitism.

Charles Small, executive director and founder of YIISA, released a statement that YIISA had been publishing articles at a "high caliber," contesting Salovey's claim that YIISA had not produced enough scholarly papers. In Small's view, the real reason for the administration's decision to close YIISA was the initiative's focus on modern antisemitic countries, such as Iran, because the administration would prefer to study only historial examples of antisemitism so as to avoid controversy.

“It appears that Yale, unlike YIISA, is not willing to engage in a comprehensive examination of the current crisis facing living Jews, but instead is comfortable with reexamining the plight of Jews who perished at the hands of antisemites,” Small said. “The role of a true scholar and intellectual is to shed light where there is darkness, which is why we at YIISA are committed to critical engaged scholarship with a broader approach to the complex, and at times controversial context of contemporary global antisemitism.”

Sociology Professor Jeffrey Alexander, a member of the YIISA faculty governance committee, said that Small’s use of the phrase “engaged scholarship” revealed YIISA's focus on politics over scholarship. YIISA was "definitely" too political, in his view, which reduced its appeal to the broader Yale population, causing it to fail the review of its academic standards.

“The reason [for YIISA’s lack of success] was that it was political, had a strong political orientation,” Alexander said. “[This orientation] was to defend the policies of the current conservative government [of Israel], and the whole post ‘67 tendency of Israel’s foreign policy, which is to occupy conquered territories, to continue the settlement movement.”

He said that Small saw antisemitism scholarship as a tool to discredit Arab critics of Israeli foreign policy. Small disagreed, telling the News Thursday that YIISA never had a political agenda. He cited the wide variety of ideologies and opinions among YIISA faculty as evidence that the initiative was not singlemindedly Zionist.

Alexander said he was hopeful that Samuels, with his “impeccable” academic credentials, would be able to make YPSA more scholarly and reputable.

While the curriculum for YPSA is still in the works, Samuels said it will focus on research and not policy work — giving grants to faculty and students, creating a faculty reading group, and recruiting a visiting scholar to teach a class each year.

Samuels said he would like YPSA to host an annual conference on antisemitism, with the inaugural one slated for spring 2012, probably on the topic of French antisemitism.

Last year's YIISA conference, Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity, made Yale administration concerned about the YIISA'S work, Economics Professor Gustav Ranis said.

Ranis became the co-chair of the YIISA faculty governance committee set up in the wake of the conference. He said that the faculty governance committee tried to push YIISA in a more academic direction to attract more interest from non-Jewish students and faculty, but "ran out of time." Samuels and Alexander were also members of the faculty governance committee.

Small blamed radical Islamic and extreme left wing bloggers for the bad publicity the conference got. He pointed out that it was the largest conference on antisemitism ever, and it would have been absurd for the conference to ignore Muslim antisemitism.

"Could you imagine if we'd had the same conference in 1938 at Yale University. Would we have been called anti-german, anti-Christian, and perhaps Communists?" Small said. "Today we've been called neoconservatives, racists, apartheid supporters, and advocates not scholars."

He added that YIISA was against all forms of racism.

Natalia Emanuel ’12, a student intern at YIISA, said that ending YIISA is a step backward given the current state of anti-Semitism in the world. But she was relieved to hear about YPSA.

“As long as the reformulated YIISA is allowed to explore bias and its implications with honesty – even when some aspects are charged – I believe this center can do a tremendous amount of good work,” Emanuel said.

The original YIISA may may still exist in some context only not at Yale. Small said that he has been in contact with other academic institutions and aims to relocate YIISA to one of them.

YIISA was the first interdisciplinary program to study antisemitism at a North American university.

Let’s hope it is the last.

(h/t to Ali G)

Boola! Boola! Yale Decides that It’s Curtains for the Yale Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism

Update, June 10: Antony Lerman, a scholar of anti-Semitism, has written a very good post on the Yale decision, against the backdrop of the politicization of the study of anti-Semitism. For more substance (and more length) please read his in addition to mine.

"When the sons of Eli break through the line/That is the sign we hail/Bull Dog! Bull Dog! Bow-wow-wow!/ Eli Yale"

                                    -- Cole Porter

Sorry for that burst of filial love for my alma mater. But the Yale Daily News is reporting that Yale has decided not to renew the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism.

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), which has operated since 2006, will not continue next year, Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies Donald Green said in a statement.

The decision to end the program has met criticism from groups across the nation that show support for Jewish people, such as the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. But Green, a political science professor, said YIISA generated little scholarly work that earned publication in highly regarded journals, and its courses attracted few students.

"YIISA suffered the same fate as other initially promising programs… that were eventually terminated at ISPS because they failed to meet high standards for research and instruction," Green said, citing the Center for the Study of Race, Inequality and Politics as another example of an underachieving program.

In other words, the program was crappy. And so it was axed. Good for Yale. And good for the serious study of anti-Semitism.

The moral of this story? Take an important phenomenon which is worthy of study and have it hijacked by people with an ideological agenda, who organize conferences that revel in Islamaphobia and rightwing Zionism, mixing mediocre academics and non-academics with serious scholars, all of whom have axes to grind – in short, trivialize anti-Semitism in order to silence critics of Israel – and sooner or later, God willing, real academics will write it off as an embarrassment.

For my criticisms of the pseudo-scholarly hate-fest organized last year, see my post here.

I have no objection at all to a Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, though a Center for the Study of Racism, including Anti-Semitism as one of several phenomena, would suit my tastes better. And I agree with Abe Foxman that it would be better to try to fix the YIISA then to end it – but not for his reasons:

"The decision to end the Center was a bad one on its own terms, but it is even worse because it leaves the impression that the anti-Jewish forces in the world achieved a significant victory," Foxman    said.

For Foxman the Initiative was to have been a Yale Anti-Defamation League, combating world anti-Semites, rather than a serious intellectual endeavor.

May I suggest to Mr. Foxman that if the anti-Jewish forces in the world have achieved a significant victory, it's because the intellectual poverty of the Initiative had become a shonde for the Jews and for the goyyim.

Let Yale study anti-Semitism – but let Yale do it seriously, and not put on conferences like the one I criticized.

And, please, Yale – hang tough when the alumni donors start making phone calls.

h/t to Mairav Zonszein

Some of What’s Wrong With the Liberal Zionist Vision of the Two State Solution

Liberal Zionists in Israel and the diaspora have, for many years, put forth a vision of two states in historic Palestine, i.e., a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state. The borders between the states would be the 49 armistice line (the "green line"), with land swaps to recognize "demographic realities," i.e., the half a million Jewish settlers who have settled over the green line since 1967. In exchange for the settlement blocs, the Palestinians would be given land within pre-67 Israel "of equal quality," a concept that is left vague. They would be asked to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state, to forego the right to return given them by Resolution 194 and international law, and to keep their state nonmilitarized.

This view is not only accepted by liberal Zionists (Jews and non-Jews are included within that description, as well as any one who believes in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state – I can't think of any better description for that view than Zionist) It has also been accepted by some Palestinians and their allies who see it as preferable to the status quo. It is not half a loaf; it is more like half a slice. But, the argument goes, it is better than nothing.

What I would like to argue briefly is that the liberal Zionist vision of the two-state solution is not morally justifiable, and a peace agreement along its lines constitutes what Avishai Margalit calls, although not with reference to the liberal Zionist vision, a rotten compromise. Margalit distinguishes between bad compromises, which are justifiable or excusable for the sake of peace even when the principles of justice are violated, and rotten compromises, which either result in, or preserve, an inhuman system. The cases of inhuman systems he gives (slavery, racist tyranny) are worse, I believe, than the current system of Israeli occupation – but what that system shares in common with the more extreme versions is the dehumanization of those under occupation. I wish to argue that a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians that produces a Palestinian state that is only marginally better than occupation, and in which there is still a significant degree of Israeli control, hence, of dehumanization, would be, if not a rotten compromise, than something perilously close to it.

I grant that, at first glance, the liberal Zionist vision of the two-state solution tries to end the dehumanization of the Palestinians. After all, it is claimed, the withdrawal of the IDF would give the Palestinians control over their own lives. They would not be bound by all the restrictions, e.g., immigration, decisions taken without their representation, that are placed upon them now. They could stand on their own two feet.

But this is a liberal Zionist illusion, based on the underlying liberal Zionist myth that the Palestinians have nothing to fear from the Israelis provided that the former behave themselves. In fact – as the disengagement from Gaza has abundantly shown – the issue is not whether there is an IDF military presence, or even a settlers' presence on the West Bank. The issue is whether Israel has effective control over the Palestinian state by virtue of its military and economic power. By "effective control" I don't mean "total control". Israel has never had total control over the Palestinians – nor is that fact remarkable. American slaveholders never had total control over their slaves, as the slave rebellions and other acts of resistance amply show. But it is abundantly clear, and has been pointed out by many, that the liberal-Zionist vision doesn't take into account Palestinian security needs – beyond having them outsourced to countries friendly to Israel. And a truncated non-militarized Palestine with security guarantees for Israel would not guarantee a sufficient level of dignity, security, and independence that a peace agreement must provide in order for it not to represent a rotten compromise. If the Palestinian leadership accepts such a compromise, out of weakness, so much the worse for them.

The liberal Zionist vision is indeed motivated by moral concerns. The vision recognizes that it is morally wrong, not just inexpedient, for Israel to have day to day control over the lives of Palestinians. It is less concerned with the measure of effective control Israel will have over the future Palestinian state, and indirectly, on the lives of the Palestinians living within it. I don't think it is concerned with that at all.

The strange thing about the compromise offered by liberal Zionist groups like J Street is that it is not really a compromise at all. In a compromise, both groups give up things that are dear to them in order reach agreement. Yet in the liberal Zionist vision of the Two State solution, the Israeli side gives up things that the liberal Zionist wants to give up in the first place – the West Bank and Gaza. The liberal Zionist does not mind sharing Jerusalem, nor does it mind withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza – on the contrary, it argues such a withdrawal to be in Israel's long-term interests. The liberal Zionists, in order to sell the plan to not-so-liberal Zionists, argue that in the worse case scenario, Israel's security would not be seriously threatened after such a withdrawal. So in fact, the liberal Zionist vision combines moral concern with the Palestinians under occupation with concern for the future of the Jewish state if the occupation continues. It offers to the Palestinians things that it is not interested in to begin with – and presents these as painful compromises.

This comment has been made often by the West Bank settlers. When the Oslo Accord spoke of "Gaza first" a popular rightwing bumper sticker was, "Tel Aviv first." The framers of Oslo were criticized for offering things that the rightwing was interested in keeping, but that they weren't.

If the Palestinians are asked to make painful compromises, then so should the Israelis. That should take some of the sting off of what the Palestinians are forced, through their weakness, to offer.

Let me take this back to the issue of land swaps. The liberal vision of land swaps is to give Palestinians land as compensation for the land of the settlement blocs. Let's take one "uncontroversial" settlement bloc for liberal Zionists – the settlements over the Green Line near Jerusalem. Now I ask you seriously – what lands in Israel could possibly compensate for these strategically settled areas, areas that were settled not only to provide more housing for Jews but to keep Jerusalem within effective Jewish control for perpetuity? Before 1967, Jerusalem was a circle split in two (unequal) parts, Jewish and Arab. With the settlement blocs, Jerusalem is now a Jewish bagel with a bite out of it; a tiny part of the hole is Arab. Given Jerusalem's national, religious and strategic importance, what does Israel plan to give in exchange? Land contiguous to Gaza? Land from the Lachish district.?

The integration of the settlement blocs around Jerusalem into Israel radically alters Jerusalem – and even were the Palestinian state offered all of the Negev from Beer Sheva to Eilat, that would not be begin to compensate.

That is why I suggested that in exchange for the Palestinians losing most of Jerusalem and its environs – a painful compromise – it should demand that Israel receive a significant number of Palestinian refugees. Now nobody in Israel wants this – which is precisely why it would be viewed by the Palestinians as a sacrifice worthy of their sacrifice. Or if not the refugees, then prime territory around Tel Aviv, or in the area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The response to this will be that I am making peace impossible. But my response to that is that the peace is not the end game – dignity and self-determination are. It is about time that liberal Zionists stop arguing that "peace is so close, if only we could find out the way to it" and start looking not so much at principles of absolute justice – the weaker party will never get that – but the minimum requirements of an agreement for dignity, humanity, and self-determination.

And to my one-state friends, I want to make clear that I am not endorsing a two-state solution. I am calling for liberal Zionists to examine the adequacy of the two-state solution that they are endorsing, and not just from the frame of reference of the liberal Zionist.

I didn't always feel this way. On the eve of Camp David II, I went to a demonstration in support of Prime Minister Barak at the Prime Minister residence. I heard him talk about settlement blocs, and I said to myself – Heck, if the Palestinians accept it, who am I, an Israeli, to be more Palestinian than they are? Isn't it more important to end the occupation, get an agreement, and start working together again? Isn't any deal better than no deal?

Not when that deal represents a rotten, or near rotten compromise. As a liberal Zionist, ask yourself how you feel if you were asked to give up most of Jerusalem, settle a million Palestinian refugees, and accept external controls on your security.

What would you be willing to give up for peace?

What’s Wrong With Israel’s Keeping Settlement Blocs?

Some readers (and J Street folks) were puzzled by the tone and content of my previous post. After all, what's the difference, I was asked, between settlements and settlement blocs? And if there will be land swaps between the Palestinian and Israeli states, what difference does it make precisely where the land is swapped? At the end of the day, Israel and Palestine will have the same proportion of historic Palestine (without the Hashemite kingdom of Trans-Jordan) as guaranteed by the 1967 lines. Can't I cut J Street a little slack here – in order to get a Palestinian state off the ground? Both the Palestinians and the Americans want to focus first on borders. Doesn't that mean that an agreement is closer on the border issue than on other core issues?

So let me briefly set matters straight.

Settlement blocs vs. settlements. The moral argument for keeping Jewish settlers where they are, even though their settlement beyond the green line is recognized as illegal, is simply – it is too hard too move them. That, of course, refers to the settlements themselves. But if they are going to stay where they are, the argument goes, their security and growth require that not only do they stay put, but they be situated in "blocs". I am not sure who first came up with the idea of bloc, but historically it may have been related to the Ezion bloc of settlements, which fell to the Arab fighters in the 47-8 war. The Ezion bloc was one of the first areas to be settled after the 1967 war. The fate of the that bloc is instructive; in the name of returning to settlements that had been captured, the Ezion bloc over the years has tripled in territory. The land on which the city of Efrat, for example, was built, has nothing to do with the original bloc of settlements – and yet it is now automatically included in the settlement bloc (except in the Geneva Initiative map.)

If the settlements are illegal, then settlement blocs are worse – because they are a naked attempt to maximize not only the settlements but the areas between the settlements and – this is important – break up the territorial contiguity of the Palestinians state. Defenders of Israel always like to say that, in terms of percentages, the settlement blocs constitute a relatively small part of the West Bank. Even if that were true, the issue is not how much territory but where it is located.

This is particularly true of the blocs around Jerusalem and the Ariel bloc in the north. No Palestinian mini-state could ever arise were the Ariel bloc annexed, or were the Maaleh Adumim bloc annexed – much less if there is contiguous Jewish settlement in the E1 project linking Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem

For a standard defense of annexing the five major settlement blocs, check out Mitchell Bard's explanation and map here. Bard writes

Would the incorporation of settlement blocs prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state? A look at a map shows that it would not. The total area of these communities is only about 1.5% of the West Bank. A kidney-shaped state linked to the Gaza Strip by a secure passage would be contiguous. Some argue that the E1 project linking Ma'ale Adumim to Jerusalem would cutoff east Jerusalem, but even that is not necessarily true as Israel has proposed constructing a four-lane underpass to guarantee free passage between the West Bank and the Arab sections of Jerusalem.

Please look at the Bard's map, which is taken from the (pro-Israel Washington Institute of Near Eastern Policy). Look, for example, at Jerusalem prior to 1967, divided between Israelis and Palestinians, and the Jerusalem proposed now, which would leave East Jerusalem an enclave surrounded by massive Jewish settlement. But, more importantly, consider what constitutes "contiguity" according to Bard – a four-lane underpass!

Now consider why Israel ambassador Michael Oren recently considered the 49 armistice lines to be "indefensible" – despite the fact that not only were they successfully defended, they were expanded upon in 1967

Israel's borders at the time were demarcated by the armistice lines established at the end of Israel's war of independence 18 years earlier. These lines left Israel a mere 9 miles wide at its most populous area. Israelis faced mountains to the east and the sea to their backs and, in West Jerusalem, were virtually surrounded by hostile forces. In 1948, Arab troops nearly cut the country in half at its narrow waist and laid siege to Jerusalem, depriving 100,000 Jews of food and water.

How long would it take Israel to take control of a 4 lane highway, thereby cutting the Palestinian mini-state in two? Would Ben Gurion have accepted a state that had the contiguity afforded by a four-lane underpass?

The Palestinian state must be contiguous, which means that it must have contiguous and defensible territory between its various parts. Palestinian security needs are no less important than Israel's security needs; only a racist or tribalist would think otherwise.

To the argument that is immoral to move settlers, I reply that it is immoral to keep Palestinians in refugee camps. Let Israel absorb the settlement blocs, and let the Palestinians absorb Jewish owned territory in such a way that there is roughly parity in the resultant states. Any two-state solution has to take into consideration not only the demographic and security needs of the Israelis, but the demographic and the security needs of the Palestinians, including the refugees. We can start by settling half a million Palestinian refugees in choice Jewish state owned lands that have not been acquired from Palestinians Israelis – and then let's redraw the map of Israel to reflect the demographic realities of the Palestinian Arabs (including those of the diaspora), and the Israelis (including those of the Jewish diaspora.)

This would not be the ideal solution but a lot fairer than the one proposed by the Israeli "left" and the American administration. If their proposal is accepted by the PA leadership, then Jews and Palestinians should join hands to oppose the concessions of the PA.

Has J Street Abandoned the Two-State Solution?

Last Saturday night there was a protest in Tel-Aviv, ostensibly in favor of Palestinian "statehood". For most Israelis, a two state solution means one real Jewish state, and a second, quasi, Palestinian state. Heck, that's true not just for most Israelis for successive American administrations. But even those administrations would not go so far as support the idea that in a future peace settlement that gives birth to a quasi state (which, I pray to God, will never come about – and so far He has answered my prayers), the large settlement blocs would be annexed to Israel and what's left of the West Bank (and Gaza?) would be part of a Palestinian bantustan, oops, I mean "state" with "land swaps".

Yet J Street has not only embraced the ridiculous notion that the large settlement blocs – and that has to include Ariel in the North – will be annexed to Israel, it has dishonestly interpreted this to be consonant with Pres. Obama's policy.

How so? I received an email from J Street praising a poster of the Nationalist Left movement (available through J Street in English here) in Israel that says, "We get the settlement blocs; they get a state." Now, no United States administration has said that in a future peace accord with the Palestinians, the settlement blocs would stay in Israel's possession, EVEN ASSUMING LAND SWAPS. By all accounts, the City of Ariel in the North is a large settlement bloc. Gush Etzion is certainly a large settlement bloc, and the Geneva Iniative's map of borders, left Efrat – part of Gush Etzion – outside of Israel. It's true that the Nationalist Left movement claims to support the Obama formulation of 67 borders with land swaps against Bibi's naysaying. It is also true that the National Left's idea of settlement blocs no doubt differs from that of Bibi. But let's make this perfectly clear – one either can annex the major settlement blocs OR have a viable Palestinian state; one cannot do both. And not surprisingly, the Nationalist Left's formulation is claimed to be valid whether there is a peace agreement or not. In other words, that movement holds that Israel can withdraw from the West Bank and annex the settlment blocs, even without a deal. Where J Street should be pushing the idea that the settlement blocs are the major obstancle to peace, precisely because they are illegal blocs of settlements, they have allied themselves with the Nationalist Left, which is not in the camp of the Obama administration, and which wants to purify the loathsome settlements as if it is not big deal – just "demographic realities", to use the Nationalist Left's term.

In explaining the Nationalist Left's slogan, J Street's Carinne Luck writes:

By settlement blocs, the poster means that the large Jewish population centers just over the 1967 lines that would be swapped for territory currently on the Israeli side of the lines. "Them" means the Palestinians. An Israeli political movement called the National Left (Smol Leumi) developed the poster.

This formulation mirrors the one that President Obama laid out in his speech and has been the policy of the U.S. Government for decades. Experts agree it is the most viable model for a two-state solution, as well as the only way to secure Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic homeland

Well, Efrat is a large population center over the 1967 line. Is J Street supporting making the annexation of Efrat a deal breaker? What "experts" is Luck referring to? Where has President Obama ever said that the "settlement blocs" will be annexed to Israel? I will be happy to make a contribution ot J Street if Carinne or anybody else finds that language there in an administration statement.

Heck, I haven't even seen J Street use the language of "settlement blocs," which is the Israeli phrase that maximizes territory (since you can be a small settlement within a bloc.) What J Street says on its website is as follows:

The borders should allow for many existing settlements, (which could account for as many as three-quarters of all settlers) to be part of Israel's future recognized sovereign territory.

That's hardly the language of "settlement blocs."

So what is J Street doing? Are they just clueless? Trying to put something over an uninformed American Jewish electorate? Hoping that a poster with Obama will make them look kosher?

Or…perhaps, like the Nationalist Left, they are proposing a ridiculous, non-starter of a solution, one that even the most pro-Israeli, pro-peace Palestinian government imaginable would rightly reject.

Has J Street abandoned a credible Two-State Solution? Or did they just make one of the gaffes for which they have become well-known?

h/t to Child of Abraham

President Obama Delivers His AIPAC Speech Early

President Barack Obama's speech on Middle East perfectly illustrates the phenonemon known as 'PEP' – progressive, except for Palestine.

When referring to the Arab world, he used language like "democracy" and "universal rights". Of Bahrain, where the US is propping up an illegitimate regime, he said, "We have insisted publicly that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal right of Bahrain's citizens." In fact the term "rights was used over 15 times in the speech. But when we get to Israel, "rights" was mentioned once, in this passage,

But moving forward now [in the peace process] on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.

Do Palestinians not have the same rights as their brethren in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, and Bahrain? Would it be so hard for the President to mention that while neither of the two parties lives in peace, only one party – the Palestinian suffers massive violation of human rights? The answer ,of course, is yes, it would have been hard. For all presidents are drilled in the principle of the symmetry of suffering and the importance of balance (while emphasizing the special relationship with the Jewish state.)

Mr. Obama did mention the occupation. But like Ariel Sharon, he did not speak of the occupation of territory, but rather the occupation of people, i.e., people living under occupation. Are Palestinian lands being occupied? And this sentence gives it all away.

    For Palestinians, [the conflict] has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.

The "humiliation" of occupation, not its tyranny.

And how about this:

    The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River. Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself.

What does that mean? Should Israel be preparing itself for cyber attacks? Or is the "technology" referring to social networking? And what about Gaza? Only mentioned when citing the Gaza doctor who lost three daughters.

The Obama Administration, with this speech, has declared itself irrevocably out of touch. I am sorry I took the time to write the above about it.

 

Last Minute Advice to President Obama Before the Mideast Speech

Memo

To: Barack H. Obama, President of the United States

From: One of your many liberal Zionist advisors

Mr. President:

In your address on the Middle East tomorrow, you will be, of course, using teleprompters. Be very careful that you don't let your eyes wander from the screens, or you may quickly find yourself off message.

For example, where you say,

"We applaud the armed resistance of those under attack" make sure you continue, "in Libya", and not "in the Occupied Territories."

And where you say,

"We welcome the unarmed protest of people yearning for freedom," finish "in Tahrir Square" and not "in Bil'in".

Be sure that where you refer to, "the Arab democratic awakening that has spread throughout Middle East countries, like Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc." you don't include "Palestine" in the list.

When speaking of the Arab world, praise civil society. When speaking of the Palestinian territories, praise Mahmoud Abbas and Salim Fayyad.

Don't mixup "viable" and "secure" when referring to the Palestinian and Israeli states, respectively.

And above all, remember to call upon the Palestinians to eschew terrorism and to emulate the unarmed protests in Ni'ilin, Nabi Saleh, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and all those other places in the Middle East somewhere.

 

h/t to my list friends

Back to 1948

Most Jews of my generation (and younger) were raised with certain myths about the founding of the State of Israel that we now know bear no resemblance to the historical events. Even reciting these myths are embarrassing for the moderately informed. And we now also know that, even granting counterfactually that some of the myths were true, it wouldn't help the Israel apologist, since the conclusions drawn from the myths are patently invalid.

For example, no educated person seriously accepts the proposition today that the Palestinian refugee problem was created when Arab states declared war on the State of Israel in 1948. That is because it is common and uncontroversial knowledge that half of the Palestinians left in months before the war was declared, when both sides were engaged in riots and skirmishes against each other. No historian, not even Ephraim Karsh, to my knowledge, denies that. But still you will read folks like, say, the Prime Minister of Israel, or, Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who repeat this narrishkeit about the Arab invasion of Israel being the cause of the refugee problem. I am not talking about who is responsible for the exodus. I am simply talking about the fact of the exodus.

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote today a particularly scurrilous piece in response to Acting President Mahmoud Abbas's op-ed in the New York Times. Abbas had written

Sixty-three years ago, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was forced to leave his home in the Galilean city of Safed and flee with his family to Syria.

Goldberg called that a "falsification" because one could understand Abbas to be claiming that he was forced to leave by Israeli soldiers pointing a gun at him, or that Israeli soldiers had it in for 13-year old Palestinian boys. But Mahmoud Abbas himself had said that his family left with many others because they feared reprisals from the Zionists. Goldberg calls this "self-exile", rather than being forced to leave home. To drive the point home, his piece asks the question, "Was Mahmoud Abbas' Family Expelled from Palestine?" (Since Abbas never claimed that it was, that is the quintessential straw man.)

So my question for Goldberg is simple: When Jews emigrated from Germany after Kristallnacht, was that "self-exile"? When Jews fled Poland during the Holocaust weeks in advance of the German arriving, was that "self-exile"? When Jews left Palestine in 1947 because they were afraid of Arab reprisals, was that "self-exile"? Or would he say they were forced to leave because of the circumstances.

What is a myth? A myth is a construction of beliefs that allows one to make sense of reality, even though those beliefs themselves are not true, or only part of the picture. For the uninformed Israel supporter, the myth of Israel's founding is brief and simple. With the adoption of the UN's Partition Proposal in 1947, the world recognized the historic rights of the Jews to a state in Palestine. The Zionists were willing to agree to a historic compromise that they would clearly honor; the Arabs were not. Instead, the Arabs initiated a war, called upon the Palestinian refugees to leave, so that the Jews could be thrown into the sea. They lost the war. So much the worse for them. Let's move on.

Now, some of the above is arguably true; all of it is arguably false – but in any event, it is only a partial version of the events. It deliberately leaves out inconvenient truths, and fails to imply the conclusions that that apologists wish to draw from it.

The 1947 UN Partition Proposal did not recognize the historical rights of the Jews to a state; rather, it recognized the historical mess that Palestine had become, and so the UN called for its partition into two states, with an economic union of the two, and which excluded Jerusalem from either people's sovereignty. The Zionists – to be precise, Ben-Gurion and Co. -- accepted partition on paper, and either planned, or acquiesced to the partition of Palestine between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, not the Palestinian Arabs. Even if the acceptance of partition was more than tactical, it was abandoned at the first possible moment by the Zionists, and not because of Arab resistance – but because the Zionists had the upper hand, and they believed (as many do now) that all of Eretz Yisrael belonged to them. In any event, as soon as Arab rioting broke out following the UN acceptance of partition – rioting that quieted down, and then flared up again, with both sides engaging in illegal terrorist activity against the other and against the British, -- implementation of the partition plan was put on ice, and UN Trusteeship, and the deferral of the establishment of the states, was put on the table. The Arabs accepted trusteeship (for a limited time); the Zionists rejected it. (This is never mentioned by the mythologizers.)

During this period, the exodus of Palestinians (and Jews, for that matter, but there were fewer of them) continued apace. By the time Israel declared independence partition had become a dead letter, and both the Zionists and the Arab states were ready to continue the land grab. During the interim period between November 1947 and May 1948, Arab states made clear their intention to go to war to protect Palestine (some had their own territorial ambitions) should Israel declare independence. When they did, they were not singled-out and condemned for doing so. Each side blamed the other for the ensuing war; the world blamed both sides equally.

When Israel advocates say, "The Arabs wrongly initiated the war, and hence they should suffer the consequence of defeat," they are arguably wrong on the premise, and demonstrably wrong on the conclusion. For the declaration of the State of Israel could itself be seen as the casus belli; the fact remains that no international organization or state blamed the Arab states for wrongly initiating the war. But even if we grant that this was an act of aggression, and even granting, against the Fourth Geneva Convention, that territory acquired in a defensive war need not be returned to the aggressor, that would be the case if the territory belonged to the aggressor. But the Arab residents of Palestine were viewed only by the Zionists as the aggressors. Only on the racist premise that all Arabs are responsible for the acts of some, will that work.

And reflect – even if the Arabs were considered the aggressors, like, say, the Japanese, and even if the Zionists were allowed to keep the territory acquired in war -- would this justify the large-scale displacement of their non-combatants – or even combattants, after the hostilities cease? Would it have been justified for the US to seize Japan and not let Japanese refugees return? Under what international norm?

It is at this point in the argument that the educated, informed, liberal Zionist, turns and says, "Look. Let's not go back to 1948. If we do that, we will never get anywhere. That's old history."

That move is fundamental to the identity of the liberal or progressive Zionist. They can't and don't want to go back to 1948. They want to change the subject. And why not? Because they are educated enough not to buy the lukshen of the hasbaritas, progressive enough not to seem themselves as immoral dispossessors, and Zionist enough not to want to open the can of worms of 1948.

Thanks to Ehud Barak, Bibi Netanyahu, and Avigdor Lieberman, we have now gone back to 1948.

And, you know what? That may very well be a good thing.

Note to readers: if you are not a liberal Zionist, i.e., a two-stater who is willing to give up claims to the West Bank and Gaza, then don't bother to leave a comment. This piece is addressed to liberal Zionists.

The Nakba Demonstrations, and the Israeli Spin Machine

Today, hundreds of Palestinian refugees, following appeals on Facebook and Twitter, marched towards the Lebanese and Syrian borders, through Qalandia checkpoint, and in Gaza. All the protests were in observance of Nakbah Day.

Finally, the Arab Spring had come to Palestine.

Israel doesn't do popular Palestinian protest well. Like usual, they started shooting at unarmed protesters with predictable injuries and fatalities. Time will tell whether this is a one-day protest, or the beginning of something else.

Then came the Israeli spin. Like Saif Ghaddafi in Libya, the Israelis were blaming…the Iranians. Evidence? None. As if Palestinians living in refugee camps need to be motivated to protest the theft of their land.

Here is the drill: The IDF Spokesperson gets rightwing bloggers like Elder of Ziyon on a conference call and feeds them lokshen/noodles. The bloggers, who believe anything the IDF tells them, trumpet the IDF talking points to the blogosphere. Of course, they have been provided no evidence for those talking points. In this case, the lokshen was that "Hezbollah and Syria organized and helped out in the clashes up north." Again, no evidence.

The same talking points are given to the IDF's press lackeys, like Yoni Ben Menachem, who played the Syria card – again without evidence.

You can see how this works in Anshel Pfefer's piece in Haaretz.:

According to initial reports, the demonstrators that broke through the border fence were not Syrians or Druze, but rather Palestinian refugees who reside in camps around Damascus. It is difficult to imagine that these refugees could have reached the border area without the knowledge, approval and perhaps even encouragement of the central government in the Syrian capital.

While attention was given over the weekend to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the events that transpired on Nakba Day on the Golan Heights surprised the IDF and perhaps even gave Assad what he has been searching for over many weeks – an event that will reduce international pressure on him over the suppression of demonstrations in Syrian cities

The only evidence presented? Surely a protest of this sort would have to coordinated with the central government. But so what? I imagine that any Syrian government, authoritarian or democratic, would be happy to let the Palestinian refugees make a protest action.

In fact, the only authoritarian governments that intervened were Egypt and Jordan – in order to stop Palestinian protesters from getting to the border.

Not a single scrap of evidence links these protests with Iran.

But the spin doesn't stop there. Let's look at Israel's spokesperson in the American media (no, not Jennifer Rubin; I haven't seen what she wrote), Jeffrey Goldberg, a liberal hawk with a limited understanding of what is going on in the West Bank and the Golan, links to Andrew Exum, a liberal hawk with no understanding of what is going on in the West Bank and the Golan. Exum writes:

This will shock all some none of you, but Arab regimes have often cynically used the Palestinian cause to shift the focus away from their own failures and abuses. The clashes today are the best of news for Bashar al-Asad, and only the Lord knows how many brave Syrians will now be gunned down or thrown into prison in Homs, Douma, Hama, Baniyas, etc. while everyone's eyes are on the Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan borders with Israel. Just yesterday, we were all talking about terrified Syrians fleeing into northern Lebanon. Now Syria and its allies have either engineered or have been presented with the mother of all distractions from their own wretched and criminal behavior.

One would expect that Exum or Goldberg could point to a single statement emanating from Damascus that provides evidence that they are playing up the Nakba protests as a "distraction." But who need evidence when a classic Zionist trope – the "cynical-exploitation-of-the-Palestinians-sufferings-by-the-Arab-governments" can be appealed to. In fact, the beauty of this dogma is precisely that no evidence is needed, since it is self-evident.

Goldberg and Exum say nothing about Jordan's regime stopping the Palestinian protesters – and why should they? After all, who cares about democracy when the autocrat is your friend?

I say that Exum knows nothing about the West Bank because he writes this drivel:

What happens when the Palestinians in the West Bank start demanding statehood not through violence but through peaceful protests? How will Israel respond? One option they do not have is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend like the call for Palestinian statehood will go away. And good luck whenever some clever Palestinian leader starts organizing peaceful marches on some crazy hilltop settlements in the West Bank, counting on provoking the kind of response that the media in Israel and abroad will eat up.

Where the hell has Exum been in the last five years? Does he know about the Popular Committees on the West Bank? Does he know about the unarmed protests which Israel has suppressed through a combination of force, arresting organizers like Abu Rahmeh, terrorizing minors in the middle of the night so they can testify against leaders, administrative detentions, and Shabak plants?

Would somebody get that man a subscription to the 972mag? Or to Joseph Dana's blog? Ribono shel olam, maybe Exum should stick to things he knows something about…or is this the effect of his stint at WINEP?

And a parting shot at somebody who should know better, Ethan Bronner, who writes here in the Times:

Like those other protests, plans for this one spread over social media, including Facebook, but there were also signs of official support in Lebanon and Syria, where analysts said leaders were using the Palestinian cause to deflect attention from internal problems.

What "signs"? Which "analysts"? Bronner gets around to these several paragraphs later, when he quotes…an analyst for Israeli Broadcasting Authority and an IDF general, and nobody else. And even those guys just speculate.

Obviously, Syria and Hizbollah, and all Arabs everywhere, support the Palestinians. When Egypt and Jordan cease to be regimes run by the military and an autocrat, respectively, the Palestinians will also get support there. But this is, at best, misleading reporting from Ethan Bronner.

h/t to Ali G

The Never-Ending Nakbah

Today, millions of people around the world observed Nakbah Day, which commemorates the loss of much of Arab Palestine to the Zionists in 1947-1948, and the attendant catastrophes. The responsibility for the loss of Palestine is shared by almost all the players of the day; the UN, which decided on partition, the Zionists, who pursued statehood at the cost of perpetual war, the big powers, which still called the shots, the Arab states, which insufficiently prepared for a war that they were to lose, and the, last and least, the Arab population of Palestine, which, divided among itself, underestimated the strength of its opponents and was outmaneuvered and outflanked.

Later Zionist spin would hold the "Arabs" collectively responsible for the Nakbah – because their leaders refused to recognize the rights of the Zionists to a state in Palestine, or because a small minority of Palestinians (according to Moshe Shertok/Sharret at the time, a minority that did not speak for the Palestinian Arab masses) committed acts of mob violence against Jew (acts that were repaid in full by Jews against Arabs), or because four Arab armies crossed the borders of Palestine in order to protect the interests of the indigenous Arabs, despite the fact that the intervention was never singled out for condemnation by the United Nations.

Yet, in my opinion, it is wrong to limit the Nakbah to the events of the 1947-1948. Some will wish to date its beginnings from the Balfour Declaration, or from the San Remo conference, or even from the First Zionist Conference. There are obviously arguments in favor of those dates.

But I would date the Nakbah from the time that the Zionist movement – or the central power behind the Zionist movement, namely, David Ben-Gurion -- decided on Jewish statehood at any cost. I have written elsewhere that the Zionist desire to carve out a state for the Jews in Palestine could itself be understood as a declaration of war against the indigenous peoples. But, in fairness to many Zionists, the project of building a homeland for the Jews was often justified as good for the indigenous Arabs, and I have no doubt that some Zionist leaders genuinely thought that their efforts would help the natives. Some of these same leaders, when faced with the fact of Arab nationalism, tried to put the breaks on the headlong rush to Jewish statehood, and to think of some method of power-sharing. Had the Zionist movement conditioned the establishment of a Jewish homeland on the consent of the majority within Palestine, the Nakbah, I believe, could have been avoided. But such measures of accommodation and compromise were rejected by the leadership of both sides, polarized between militant Zionists on the one hand, and militant Arab nationalists, on the other (not to mention the terrorists on both sides.) Still, it was the aggressive push towards partition and Jewish statehood that plunged Palestine into the chaos. Had the Zionists accepted UN Trusteeship, as advocated by the United States president, Harry Truman, an Arab-Israeli war could possibly have been avoided. But the Zionists were interested in only one thing – a state at all costs, even the costs of tens of thousands of Jewish lives.

It is important to emphasize that even the attaining of Jewish independence did not require the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, however. The Jewish state did not have to reject the return of the Palestinian natives; for a short period of time, fearful that the United States would not support its admission into the UN, Ben-Gurion offered to repatriate 100,000, with all sorts of strings attached. The offer was subsequently withdrawn. Magnes and Rawidowicz argued for their return. That the State of Israel did not allow them to return, and in many instances, shot returning villages and farmers as "infiltrators," is the real reason why Israel stands accused of ethnic cleansing – i.e., getting rid of as many Palestinians as they were able to, and keeping the rest under military administration, pitting them against each other, infiltrating them with security forces, banning any expressions of national solidarity, etc.

The Nakbah continued for the Palestinian Arabs who were refugees, and for those who stayed – as lands belonging to the latter were transferred to Jewish ownership, as villages were wiped off the map, and forests and Jewish settlements were created on the ruins of the Palestine. And since 1967, Palestine "from the sea to the river" has been under the control (and effective occupation) of Israel, making decisions for the Palestinians under occupation, and expropriating their national and private land.

That nakbah will continue until the maximum amount of justice for both sides is done – and until the 1948 ethnic regime evolves democratically into something that is better for both Jew and Arab living within it.

Bi-meherah be-yameinu, omen.

For very good articles on Nakbah Day from the Israeli perspective, see the 972magazine here

Beinart, Kushner, and Ethnic "Dry Cleaning"

Peter Beinart has written a post worth reading, and worth heeding, on the Kushner-CUNY affair (which has now been settled in favor of Kushner.) Worth heeding, because he calls for a Jewish communal discussion on Israel that includes non- and anti-Zionists, Worth reading, because he sees where the communal discussion is headed. That is Beinart’s main point, and I agree with it.

But after conceding to Kushner some of the problems inherent in the Jewish regime founded in 1948, Beinart offers his own reasons for rejecting Kushner’s call for transforming Israel into a more democratic and less ethnically exclusivist state.

Traditionally, statist Zionists have claimed that Israel is faced with two alternatives: either a Jewish state like the one founded in 1948, or a secular state of all its citizens, which, at best, is binational. That stacks the deck in favor of a Jewish state, since one need only argue that binationalism is unworkable, and that only the Jewish state founded in 1948 can serve as a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution. The conclusion? Israel as an imperfect Jewish democratic state is preferable to Israel as no Jewish state at all.

These once-debated Zionist claims have solidified into dogmas over the years. Through endless repetition they have been seared into the Jewish consciousness. They represent the frozen thinking of somebody like Yitzkhak Shamir, who famously remarked about Zionist dogma that the Arabs wanted to throw the Jews into the sea, “The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea.” Nothing has changed.

Are “Jewish ethnocracy” or “secular binationalism” really the only alternatives? Are there no other possibility for creative arrangements? In the over sixty years of Israel’s existence, the only attempts to recognize the rights of the Palestinian minority as a native, homeland minority have been rejected as threatening to the Jewish state. The Palestinian minority has never been invited by the Jewish majority to articulate its concerns and offer possible solutions. That in itself would be too dangerous.

History is dynamic, not static; 2011 is not 1948; there have been enormous changes, especially in the demographic facts of Israel. Yet Israel and its supporters cannot free themselves from their postwar neuroses. Beinart writes:

Israel was created not merely to be a Jewish democracy, but to be a Jewish refuge, and even though most American Jews can’t imagine needing one, the long history of Jewish persecution suggests that we should not blithely assume that diaspora Jewish communities will always be as fortunate as us.

Let us all recall on Israel Memorial Day that the Jewish community that has suffered the most deaths and injuries since 1945 – per capita, if you like -- is the Jewish community in Israel. The long history of Palestine suggests that we should not blithely assume that the Jewish community in Israel will always be as fortunate as us. Moreover, there are other ways to ensure that Israel can serve as a refuge for persecuted Jews besides a blunt instrument like the Law of Return.

Secondly, while there is certainly a tension between Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, Israel’s Arab citizens (those within its 1967 borders) do serve in Israel’s parliament and supreme court. Indeed, they enjoy more rights and live better lives than do their cousins in most of the Arab world, which is why most Israeli Arabs would rather live in a Jewish state than a Palestinian one.

There is no evidence whatsoever that “most Israeli Arabs would rather live in a Jewish state than a Palestinian one.” There is considerable evidence that most Palestinians Israelis would prefer to live in their native homeland – Palestine – and their native state – Israel – than be expelled on the basis of their ethnicity to foreign places. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are in their homeland, with their family and friends. Are we to take pride that they prefer staying in their home as second class citizens to being forced to become refugees like their relatives? Their situation is getting worse, not better.

And most importantly – after sixty three years, the ethos of the state has always been to allow the Palestinian minority to participate in politics while effectively depriving them of all political power. Supreme court justice? Members of the parliament? Fewer and fewer Palestinians vote (per capita) each election – because the system is absolutely rigged against them. It is getting worse, not better.

The problem with the state founded in 1948 is not that it refuses to grow up, as Tony Judt once said, but that it refuses to deal with ethnic minorities with fairness and dignity. And while some of that decline can be attributed to the xenophobia that is a common disease, especially in our post-colonial world, some of it is directly attributable to the desire to build an ethnocracy that by its very nature perpetuates inequality

Tony Kushner was, in my view, imprecise when he referred to the “ethnic cleansing” conducted by the Zionists at Israel’s founding. The phrase conjures up mass murder and genocide along racial, ethnic, or religious lines. Yes, there was violent uprooting and planned dispossession. But the major crime was the laws and directives barring the return of the 750,000 refugees to their homes on the basis of their ethnicity. This is not so much ethnic “cleansing,” with its implication of blood and destruction, but rather ethnic “dry-cleaning”, ridding the country of most of its Palestinian population through legal stratagems that ensure that the natives of Palestine will be effectively barred from full participation in their homeland. Unlike ethnic cleansing, the legal structures behind ethnic dry cleaning have allowed Palestinians to be around 20% of the population and to be given the vote, but to be deprived of political power. This way Israel can say to itself and to the world that it is a democracy. This ethnic dry-cleaning is foundational to the Jewish state and all who support the 1948 state are complicit in it. In fact the liberal Zionists are arguably more complicit, since they require that Israel be a democracy.

These are not signs of an imperfect democracy. These are signs of a society that is careening towards disaster.

What the Tony Kushner Affair Says About the Changing Discourse on Israel in the United States

Tony Kushner believes that Israel engaged in ethnic cleansing at the founding of the state. He is an advisory board member of Jewish Voice for Peace, which has shown solidarity with the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a movement that has been painted by its critics as aiming to destroy the State of Israel. JVP has endorsed a partial BDS campaign, focusing on the settlements. Kushner says that he opposes BDS, but he supports (and has gathered support for) the Israeli artist boycott of the settlement Ariel, together with other distinguished artists in this country. This partial boycott is taboo in the organized Jewish community and is not endorsed by the liberal Zionist group, J Street.

Because of Kushner’s views, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a CUNY trustee, who views himself as moderate on Israel, willing to support honorary degrees to moderate critics of Israel, opposed awarding Kushner an honorary degree. The other trustees, not wishing to engage in controversy, and probably looking at their watches, voted to table (in the US, that means to postpone) a decision on Kushner, effectively denying him the award this year.

The only people who have rallied so far to Wiesenfeld’s support have been hardline rightwingers like Jonathan Tobin of Commentary and Andrea Levin of CAMERA. Liberal hawks like Jeffrey Goldberg have blasted Wiesenfeld, and former New York mayor Ed Koch, who once was liberal, has called upon Wiesenfeld to resign from the Board of Trustees. And the New York Times has, in effect, started a campaign on behalf of Mr. Kushner.

Of course, it is possible to frame support for Mr. Kushner merely in terms of dividing his art from his politics. Of what relevance is his views on Israel to awarding him a degree? He is not being honored for his opinions about Israel. So what’s the big deal? Open and shut case.

But, responds the right, the issue is not so simple. Artists or intellectuals who take immoral positions (e.g., Heidegger) may be appreciated for their achievements in their field, but not necessarily honored by universities. The Israel advocates are trying to paint Kushner as a Wagner, somebody who has crossed a line when it comes to legitimate discourse. He uses a phrase like “ethnic cleansing”! He questions the foundations of the 1948 state!

Nobody’s buying it outside of the hardline Zionist community. After Benny Morris described Israel’s actions as ethnic cleansing (albeit, he claims, without a master-plan); after Israeli artists endorse a settlement boycott; after the Arab spring breathes hope of democracy; after a rightwing Israeli government passes laws and takes positions that are diametrically opposed to that of much of the American Jewish community; after the Gaza Op, Goldstone, and the Flotilla – the goalposts have changed.

Kushner, and JVP, are becoming legitimate within the liberal Zionist community (that’s where I would put the NY Times; Ed Koch was in the center of the American Jewish community once). This is new and this is huge. We are not talking about the New York Review of Books crowd supporting a Brit intellectual like Tony Judt. Mark my words – the ethnic cleansing charge, like the apartheid charge, will become more and more mainstream in the coming months.

My barometer on these things is davka Atlanta’s Jeffrey Goldberg (with whom I share many things in common, except that he writes better than I do). Goldberg is one of a shrinking breed of liberal hawks on Israel. His gut reaction to the CUNY fiasco was outrage. To provide balance for his readership, he then interviewed Wiesenfeld, after the latter had a damaging Times interview – where you can see that Goldberg is anything but enamored of his interviewee (Goldberg rarely thinks that American Jews get Israel the way he does). Here is how Goldberg handles the ethnic cleansing charge:

On this issue, both Kushner and Wiesenfeld have good, if partial, arguments. There were instances in which Arab villages in what is now Israel were forcibly cleared of their inhabitants by Israeli forces. On the other hand, these episodes occurred during a war initiated by Arabs, after they rejected the United Nations partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

This is what I might call “Benny Morris lite.” were it even Benny Morris. The exodus of Palestinians from villages began months before the war initiated by Arabs, unless Goldberg means by that the civil war between Jews and Arabs that began months before the end of the mandate, during which the main exodus of Palestinians from their villages began. That was a civil war that the Zionists claim was “initiated” by Arabs, but which the world saw as just that – a civil war that was inevitable, no matter who shot the first bullet (If Mr. Goldberg were correct, then one would expect some international condemnation of the Arabs for initiating the war, but both sides were roundly – and rightly -- condemned.)

More importantly, however, the real “ethnic cleansing” occurred when the State of Israel barred the return of the Arab refugees to their homes. By forbidding the return of the native Arabs to their homes and villages, against the opposition of the United Nations and Zionists like Judah Magnes and Simon Rawidowicz , the new State of Israel effectively cleansed Palestine of the majority of its Palestinian inhabitants.

But here’s my point – whatever one feels about Kushner’s claims, it is now legitimate among liberal Zionists to discuss them without dismissing their advocate as anti-Semitic. They are worthy of being discussed – which means that the dissatisfaction with the Jewish state founded in 1948 can be expressed publicly without always incurring the marginalization that has been the fate of critical folks like Kushner up until now.

I think Goldberg realizes this. Not wanting to diss Tony Kushner, he has to reclaim his position in the “middle “by bashing former Ambassador Chas Freeman for his “anti-Semitic invective,” by placing him in a multiple choice quiz with Khaled Meshal, David Duke, Louis Farakkhan, and an Islamic terrorist – and why? Apparently, Freeman made the unoriginal claim that current day Palestinians are descended from ancient Jews, who converted to Islam and Christianity. Whatever one thinks about the history --it is prima facie not whacky- and the relevance of the point to today, it certainly doesn’t qualify as anti-Semitic invective. If Goldberg was referring to something else that Freeman said, he cites no examples.

For Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, Tony Kushner is anti-Semitic (or would be, if he were gentile.) For Jeffrey Goldberg, Kushner is kosher but Chas Freeman is anti-Semitic. The difference between Jeffrey Wiesenfeld and Jeffrey Goldberg, and who they consider to be anti-Semitic, teaches us about the weakening of the Zionist narrative in this country, a weakening that will continue as more Israelis and Palestinians struggle with confronting their past and planning alternative models for living together in the future. (It also teaches us about what is legitimate for gentiles to say about Israel -- but we knew that already, didn't we?)

And by the way -- neither Tony Kushner nor Chas Freeman has an anti-Semitic bone in his respective body. It won’t take long before gentiles realize that – and shortly after, I pray that Jews will, too.