Today's Times has an Obama-needs-to-give-Israel-tough-love-to-get-a-two-state solution column by Nicholas Kristof. New historian Jerome Slater sent me his take on the column. I'm going to follow that with my take. Slater:
At first glance, Nicholas Kristof’s column in today’s New York Times
might seem to be a great improvement over the poor quality of most of
the Times’ coverage and commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict—after all, Kristof does call for an American policy of “tough
love” towards Israel. Yet, it is only by the low standards of most U.S.
discourse about Israel that Kristof looks good, for actually his column
is wishy-washy, namby-pamby, highly misleading, and wholly inadequate.
Consider:
--Kristof calls for a “100 percent freeze” on Israeli settlements in
the West Bank and Jerusalem. What is really required, to
end the conflict, is a 90-95% withdrawal of all existing settlements.
--Kristof concedes to his “pro-Israel” critics that the Israeli
barriers and checkpoints throughout the West Bank have reduced
terrorism, even as he argues—correctly—that they reduce the prospect of
a peace settlement with the Palestinians. What’s wrong with this
formulation of the issue is that, in the first instance, no one knows to
what extent the reduction in terrorism in a consequence of the Israeli
barriers or, rather, to the decisions and actions not only of Abbas but
also Hamas to end terrorist attacks inside Israel. More importantly,
however, it is not just the barriers that prevent a settlement, it is
the entire apparatus of the Israeli occupation.
--Namby-pamby, wishy-washy, completely inadequate: Israel should “stop”
the settlements, “ease” the check points, allow Palestinians to move
“more freely,” negotiate “more enthusiastically” with Syria over the
Golan Heights, and with the Arab countries on the basis of the Saudi
peace proposal.
Even though his heart is in the right place, even Kristof can’t
seem to grasp—or at least, state with accuracy and candor--the
unquestioned facts in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and their obvious
implications:
1. Israel has been occupying, repressing, killing,
impoverishing, and deliberately making life miserable for the
Palestinians, at least since 1967. The way to get peace is a full
Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, accompanied by a massive
economic assistance program to the Palestinians to make it possible for
them to create a genuinely independent and viable Palestinian state.
2. Since the 1990s, Israel could have had a full peace
settlement with Syria, including normalization of economic and
diplomatic relations, if they had been willing to withdraw from all the
Golan Heights. The point is not that Israel hasn’t negotiated on that
basis “more enthusiastically,” but that they ended the negotiations
rather than make that trade-off. Every indication points to the
likelihood that they could have the same deal today—and one that is
supported by many and probably most Israeli generals, past and present.
3. Ever since the original Saudi proposal in 1982, the Israelis
could have reached peace settlements with most of the Arab world, if
only they had been willing to fully withdraw from all their 1967
conquests. Once again, it’s not that they have been insufficiently
“enthusiastic” about negotiating on that basis, it’s that they have
flatly refused to do so.
Weiss: I'm much indebted to Slater. His 1, 2, and 3 are gold--incisive and smart. The one thing I'd say in Kristof's favor is that Here's a good guy, a liberal, engaged on the issue. He's getting it into the Times. I'm happy about that. I want liberals engaged here, in the wheelhouse of the Establishment. Also, who else has gone to Hebron and seen the apartheid there? Good for him. Also in his favor, consider how much angry mail he has gotten for talking about Palestinian suffering. You and me don't work at the Times; he does. The readership is very Jewish, old, conservative. My problem with Kristof is meritocratic wishywashyness. His whole column comes down to the idea that Zionists should be clamoring for a two-state solution. True, but assumptive. Why should modern people be clamoring for Zionism? The negatives about Israel are large: it disrespects minority rights and is at dagger-points to the Arab world, which it regards with contempt, and is utterly dependent on us, whom it also seems to look down upon, having helped to entangle us in its cycle of violence. If Kristof wants to do a service, he should help American Jews think about Zionism in an honest way. If he wants to try to valorize Zionism, he should cop to it, and say, Why he is a Zionist. Or if, having seen Hebron, he's no Zionist, and I sense that he isn't: F--ing own it! Let's Jews talk about Zionism!!
Indoctrination with Zionist mythology is far deeper than Slater indicates.
I posted comments on Trita Parsi's Haaretz article at Participating in an Obsolete Discourse.
Yet, I am more disturbed that no one is discussion the obvious connections between Neocon foreign policy, Zionism, the State of Israel, and the current economic crisis.
In fact, whatever discussion exists, it is completely misleading as I indicate in One Economic Crisis or Two?.
"Israel has been occupying, repressing, killing,impoverishing, and deliberately making life miserable for the
Palestinians, at least since 1967."
Zionism has been doing this to the Palestinians since 1917. The situation between 1920 and 1948 was more or less the same as the situation from 1948 onwards, with massive ongoing Jewish colonialism wrapped up in claptrap about respecting Palestinian rights and the search for suitable quisling Arab leaders to make it happen.
"What is really required, to
end the conflict, is a 90-95% withdrawal of all existing settlements."
No — the conflict will continue until there's a real one state solution. And no — even to make an offer generous enough to make a deal that's holdable in the short term, 90-95% (even better 100%) of all existing settlERS, will have to go, because there are lots of tiny settlements, whereas it's the big ones in and around East Jerusalem whose inhabitants must all be withdrawn. The use of "settlements" rather than "settlers" in counting Israeli 'concessions' is a persistent device to make it look as if Israel is doing more than it is.
Yes, lets talk about Zionism.
Zionism (defined as the right of the Jewish people to self-govern in Israel) is a good in the world.
That INCREASE in self-determination for the Jewish people is better than the absence.
In general, what is needed is reform, not revolution.
In Israel, they do talk about Zionism. The legitimate and fearful. You, Slater, and other react only to the fearful, and do not validate the legitimate.
On the settlements,
Are you willing to forcefully remove 450,000 – 500,000 people NOW?
Most of the individuals believed that they were acquiring property with good title. Only a few are opportunistically rationalizing expansion (and the state is enabling that).
Stopping the enabling is reform. Compensating for prior wrongs is reform.
The problem with a fact on the ground is that it is a fact.
To ignore that it is a fact, is TO engage in a second wrong. (But, as that action is what is what we are facing in the present, it amounts to a first wrong in the present.)
The standard of what constitutes a just solution can NOT be what restores some imagined just past status, but what facilitates a mutually healthy new status.
The current status fails at that, but wishing for a forced removal of the settlers, rather than a democratization of the jurisdiction, also fails.
Where were YOU (you were old enough to comment) in the mid-70's BEFORE it was a fact on the ground, when it was a decision to be made, a policy that required strong input?
And, where are you NOW, that new policies demand clear, effective and kind proposal.
Very happy to remove 450-500,000 colonial bigots from East Jerusalem and so on. Their presence is a beacon to the world of Jewish chauvinism towards Arabs. A similar beacon shines from all who try to enable or excuse, on grounds of chauvinism 'pragmatism', their continued presence.
Zionism has not been a good to the world any more than Afrikaaner or While Rhodesian self-determination. It has been racist colonialism and domination of the natives from day one onwards — and must, as with Afrikaaner self-determination, in the long run, be completely undone.
Take American taxpayer money away from Israel, then lets see how long this colonial Zionism lasts.
Great post, Phil, and Joachim Martillo, you make excellent points.
"On the settlements,
Are you willing to forcefully remove 450,000 – 500,000 people NOW?"
and
"Stopping the enabling is reform. Compensating for prior wrongs is reform.
The problem with a fact on the ground is that it is a fact."
Power is power. The problem is that Israel sets a precedent. Does that mean from now on, we will merrily colonize again from our point of view "neglected space" via adverse possession/ acquisitive prescription? We only need enough force to back us till the same arguments can be used?
My main–admittedly purely emotional objection–is against simply incorporating the settler's land into the Israel state to finally resolve the not defined border issue. (I could even tell you why.)
Again emotionally, I would prefer: Leave the 1967 borders. Settlers can leave or stay. Start a huge dialog process, force people gently to set out for a truth finding process (make it essential part of the process). Force both sides to listen to each other, if necessary. Who does not want, is offered to leave for Israel. Do anything that leads up to a history of Palestine that both groups can live with.
On my mind yesterday. Select two of your community to be the central archivist for all that is connected to: "Arab mind" and the "Israeli mind"/Jewish mind Get them funds and people, ideally create an university aligned institute, granting scholarships to both Israelis and Palestinians.
with a slightly guilty conscience I dedicate the above vision to:
John Takami Morita
"Leave the 1967 borders. Settlers can leave or stay. "
This had been my proposal for four years, but ALL, the far left, the liberal left, and the nationalist right opposed it.
I could understand the nationalist right, but both the far and liberal left?
The appeal was of avoiding another mass dislocation, allowing the settlers to choose whether they wished to live on the land itself or live within a Jewish state.
In ALL cases, less than perfect to title to individual claims is still less than perfect unless consented to (even if just the rule of law is consented and accepted, allowing courts to establish the authority of title, rather than mobs).
The imperfection of title applies to BOTH Israelis and Palestinians claims. Neither should be prejudicially assumed, but required to be proven.
I argued that the 67 borders were more defensible for Israel itself, than the maze of the current borders.
let the sun shine in…..
the myths that the landed zionist aristocracy created about israel are right out of grimms fairy tales, except that these fairy stories are for the consumption of grown ups and nations.
keep up the good work phil, maybe you can singlehandedly atone for the sins of your peeps.
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel's opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality."
criminal thugs…..
In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees.
In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland.
the founding of nations is never pretty but the lying bullcrap the jewish zionist in america and elsewhere expect others to swallow is very unpallatable to the human conscience.
i hope the american intelligence professionals who arent bent over backwards sucking up zionist bullcrap all start thinking for themselves….good luck to the ostriches in the sand storm.
If Iran is Attacking It Might Really be Israel
Posted on July 24th, 2008 by Philip Giraldi
The Benny Morris op-ed in the NYT last Friday should provide convincing evidence that Israel really really really wants an attack against Iran sooner rather than later. Morris is close to the Israeli government and his case that Iran must be bombed soon and with maximum conventional weaponry to avoid using nukes later was clearly intended to push the United States to do the attacking. The likelihood that Dick Cheney is almost certainly supportive of a US pre-emptive strike and might well be pulling strings behind the scenes, possibly without the knowledge of the Great Decider, makes the next several months particularly significant if a war is to be avoided.
Some intel types are beginning to express concerns that the Israelis might do something completely crazy to get the US involved. There are a number of possible “false flag” scenarios in which the Israelis could insert a commando team in the Persian Gulf or use some of their people inside Iraq to stage an incident that they will make to look Iranian, either by employing Iranian weapons or by leaving a communications footprint that points to Tehran’s involvement.
Those who argue that Israel would never do such a thing should think again. Israel is willing to behave with complete ruthlessness towards the US if they feel that the stakes are high enough, witness the attack on the USS Liberty and the bombing of the US Consulate in Alexandria in the 1950s. If they now believe that Iran is a threat that must be eliminated it is not implausible to assume that they will stop at nothing to get the the United States to do it for them, particularly as their air force is only able to damage the Iranian nuclear program, not destroy it.
When I was in high school, I read "The Chosen." American high schools do not teach anything regarding the history of the Jews other than the Holocaust, so it was through this book that I first learned of Zionism. I don't remember how I felt about the conflict between the main characters and their stance on Israel, but I remember that Hasidics were adamantly anti-Zionist. Nonetheless, I had no real opinion until I took a class on Middle East history.
Today, I believe Zionism's original purpose was good, but it has since morphed into an excuse for racism and oppression against Arab non-Jews (Christian and Muslim), and occasionally against ethnic Jewish groups such as the Falasha. Zionism is especially heinous in its promotion of Islamophobia. And while Zionism encourages the world’s Jews to immigrate in their effort to curb the tide of non-Jewish births in the Occupied Territories, the Israelis are not always kind to their own. Are the Ashkenazim really superior to the Mizrahim? What about the Falasha? Inter-faith marriage means loss of rights?
Is “Jewish” a term designating religion or ethnicity? And regardless of the answer, what is a real justifiable reason for the creation of a State of Israel that calls itself a democracy, but in reality is a theocracy that discriminates against non-Jews? Why should the US, which at least feigns to champion democracy around the world, continue to support a theocracy that continually ignores our pleas to cease settlement building? Further still, I wonder of all the American Jews who fight so stridently for the preservation of Israel, who raise millions for AIPAC, who decry any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic rhetoric, are they American or does their Jewish identity make them Israelis in abstentia? Do they have dual citizenship? If we were to (heaven forbid) go to war with Israel, who would they fight for?
Tracy,
Israel is the least theocratic of any states in the region.
And, Israel is primarily democratic within Israel. (It definitely needs reform, both in relation to non-Jews and to minority Jews.) Non-Jews have rights of free press, free peaceful assembly, equal voting rights, theoretically equal access to public and social services (one of the areas demanding reform).
The theocratic elements exist, but are anomolies, incidental (more than incidental) powers resulting from the need for coalitions of odd bedfellows to comprise a government.
In the US and every Western nation, there are similar anomalies from otherwise consistent rule of law.
Jewish in its usage in Zionism is ethnic. It refers to a people, of which one basis of association is religious. Politically, the religious basis of association is a subset of the popular.
The intention of Zionism, the keel slogan, is "Israel is Jewish, like France is French".
France is 20% not French, as Israel is 20% not Jewish.
In its corruption, Israel is worse than just the racial aspects. Politically and economically, it often takes greasing palms to get things done, and unions there have odd territories of vetoes staked out.
That there is corruption in permitting and other bureaucratic processes, is one of the ways that racial persecution occurs. If the person that issues the building permit only has contact with Jews, and will only accept a bribe (or a different bribe) from a Jew, then few Arabs can get building permits, even if rationally needed and complies with all legal requirements.
"If we were to go to war with Israel, who would they fight for?"
The chinese. This war is on the making. America is fading and China is not a viable host for jews in the near future. Therefore chinese rule in a conquered America is their best hope. As always jews have already used the privileges given to them (i.e. acquired through bribery) by their host in order to create a parallel establishment. When the host is weakened they change their allegiance to the strongest bidder and use their grasp in the public and private sectors in order to cut losses during transition. Future americans, a leaderless, deracinated amalgam, will live under chinese rule and jewish whip. The excedent chinese males (more than a hundred million – by now) will be gradually sent to the new colony in order to take care of the descendants of the Iraq war generation, the one who sat on its hands and watched enthralled while jews, using their holocaust-justify-all excuse, wrote and spoke about genocides to be perpetrated and hidrogen bombs to be detonated.
And do you ask why don't the witty-like jews just pack their bags and head to Israel. The truth is they are a competing ethnicity and they want what is yours. Israel is just another excuse to create friction, to show the host do not really love the jew enough. To retroactively justify jewish nocive meddling in the host politics and culture.
History is made of thresholds. An inevitable course is set well before we perceive it. When jews are able to commit crimes of state inside the host and be not prosecuted, but instead rewarded, when jews like Witty have the gall to come here say breaking american unconditional economic and diplomatic support for Israel is treachery and no american feels indignant enough to tell him wash his mouth, then time for change is past. The course is set.
An excellent post by Mr. Slater. As he points out, the mainstream media usually does not mention that Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have declared a "truce" for several years now — which may explain the decline in violence better than Israel's wall.
An excellent post by Mr. Slater. As he points out, the mainstream media usually does not mention that Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have declared a "truce" for several years now — which may explain the decline in violence better than Israel's wall.
France is 20% not French, as Israel is 20% not Jewish.
Richard, it is absolutely silly to talk of an ethnic France minus the people from the former colonies (I guess your 20%?). And yes, it sounds racist. There is no such thing as French ethnicity. The French nation is build not on ethnicity but on the citizenship. A citizen was everybody that lived inside the borders.
Norman Finkelstein argues in his thesis, that there are two basic models of nationalism. One is connected with the land, the other with a people. The first is liberal nationalism, the second organic. I refuse to follow you down the ethnicity line of thought … I have among my ancestors Dutch, Swedish, Italians so what am I a German or an ethnic hybrid? Now think a little further back. What is ethnicity?
But let's stay with France since you mentioned that before. Norman Finkelstein:
following [Hans] Kohn, I will suggests that, at the most general level, the crucial distinction to be made is between nationalism in which the nation is viewed as a projection of the state and those in which the reverse relationship is postulated.* The French revolution was the quintessential expression of the former–political variant of nationalism, German romanticism of the letter–race–variant nationalism. Occupying something of an intermediate position between these two extremes is something which I call cultural nationalism.
…
Political Nationalism
By the sixteenth century, a number of recognizable nation-states existed in western Europe. Political unity had fostered and thus combined with a greater or lesser degree of cultural unity and communal consciousness. In France and England, for example, the formation of the state and the formation of the nation advanced together: the nation was formed within the boundaries of the state.
part of the note in this context:
[Elie Kedourie ...]"The continuity of the French state or Spanish state, and their territorial stability, made it easy to adduce them as examples of the growth and development of European 'nations',the shift is vital, yet almost imperceptible. How vital it is may be appreciated when we remember that France is a state not because the French are a nation …", Lewis Namier, … notes that, in the British and Swiss versions of the national idea, "it is the state which has created the nationality, and not vice versa."
Richard, I assume that we might agree more than we disagree, but that is mainly a guess, and I often find your arguments–well how to call it–contorted? As you sometimes push the wrong button, like above via "ethnicity".
Contorted? You mean like equating the concept of citizen born in the Enlightenment and French Revolution with a tribal identity? Could they be any farther apart?
The common identity of French that I know are the language, Catholicism, and a sense of identity.
I know a few Quebecois, and they each regard themselves primarily as Quebecois, but also as French.
Its an interesting discussion as to how people come together to self-govern. Any realistic discussion would conclude that there are MULTIPLE reasons, that include both positive (attempting something – as in the Jewish Biblical proscription to be a nation of priests) and negative (protecting something).
Most states come together in mutual defense. The United States formed in that manner. The original colonies were diverse, but relative to a common afront, they confederated, and later constituted (with a great deal of conflict, but always with the overhanging threat of British colonialism).
We are all told and harbor varying inconsistent stories about each formation myth. Best to look in the mirror, rather than throw stones.
The Jewish people self-identified over a long extended period, however that identification originated. While there is division between various Jewish communities, the identity as Jewish is strong.
Zionism was originally a settlement movement, NOT a colonial one (however many fantasy stories are quoted by revisionist "historians"). It formed as a community of communities, developing strong mutually supportive (and some conflicting) social welfare and governance institutions.
It earned statehood by those internally motivated development of institutions. It was possible to transfer sovereignty to an Israel, whose institutions of governance actually existed.
It was not then possible to transfer sovereignty to Palestine, as the consciousness and institutions for national self-governance were barely conceived of.
Thats changed. Now there is a Palestinian national consciousness, and Palestinian institutions.
Social institutions come to be in struggle, when there is sufficient motivation. The romantics develop the "institutions" of warring. The pragmatists develop institutions of community, economy, law, governance.
Social institutions like…HAMAS? Or the more general growth of the Palestinian Mandate arabs into The Palestinian People?
A Palestinian state will not be whole until all the Palestinian refugees are part of it.
"Social institutions come to be in struggle, when there is sufficient motivation. The romantics develop the "institutions" of warring. The pragmatists develop institutions of community, economy, law, governance."
The German Romantics are a slightly more complex matter. And surely they never developed "institutions" of war. They may
have been on the side of the Greeks against the Ottomans, but that was only "since they searched the land of the Greeks with their souls". …
I would differentiate the artistic from the philosophical and even more from the political strain it contained. It is generally reduced to a dangerous "irrational" political force. The problem with this argument is that it is a simplification. Other artistic movements suffered from that train of thought, e.g. the Surrealists.
What is interesting in Norman's thesis is that he doesn't go into this trap. For instance he realizes that there was no Germany then, but a rather checkered nobility landscape. …
But obviously you read e.g. Herder differently if you are only looking for the "roots" of the German dilemma, and since you can't blame it on a "rationally" functioning bureaucracy the Romantics come in handy. It gives you the ability to move on, without looking that evil occasionally rests comfortably in rationally created structures.
"I know a few Quebecois, and they each regard themselves primarily as Quebecois, but also as French."
Can assume you are aware that Quebec is very much on the radar of–to put it really simple–of the ardent Dershowitz inspired antisemites hunting net-ground-forces? James Wolcott calls them attack poodles. While my Canadian First Nation friends–who I trust slightly more–like the Quebec air. At least it seems.
Can I assume, that should have been.