One of the gratifying things about being on my side of the Israel/Palestine issue–the Let Us Be Fair to Palestinians side–is the strong impression that the arrow, as they say in basketball, is going our way. Check out this recent visit of Dennis Ross to Colgate U. A student who is "inspired" by Ross interviews him and promptly asks about the "Jewish lobby." Ross says "that he never made a decision based on what lobbyists wanted or told him to do." (No he didn't have to; he is the lobby personified.) In the audience, Ira Glunts, a former IDF soldier, rose to challenge Ross about the difference between America's interest and Israel's. Today there will be demonstrations outside AIPAC's conference in Chicago. An international anti-Zionist group has been chartered. The neocons are about to be swept into the dustbin of history. The arrow, I repeat, is on our side.
That said, it's interesting to listen to John Mearsheimer, who helped start this political moment 2-1/2 years ago, in his presentation at the Oak Park Public Library a week back. I've heard Mearsheimer a lot, so I have a sense of what he really thinks on a number of subjects, and those themes show up in this freewheeling talk (or the half of it I've listened to). And a good number of those themes are pro-Zionist: It's a good thing there's a Jewish state. There are states all over the world that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, including Japan and Germany. Israel is a flawed democracy, but so what, tons of them are flawed. I'm for a Jewish state because of the Holocaust and Jews need to feel safe. And I'm for a Palestinian state for the same reason: so they can feel safe. The Clinton parameters are the only basis for a peaceful settlement, the two-state solution. The right of the return is a non-starter. Smart Palestinian leaders know that the right of return has to be "finessed." Arafat knew it. So do the Palestinian PM and the Foreign Minister, whom I met when I went there earlier this year. (I'm paraphrasing Mearsheimer…)
What's interesting about all this is that Mearsheimer, a realist, shows his conservative stripe here. He respects ethnic states. He loves America the melting pot, but that's just our way. He even tolerates dual loyalty (though he doesn't want Dennis Ross, "Israel's lawyer," anywhere near Mideast policy). He's against the right of return (almost as much as Hank Greenberg in The New Yorker is, or my friend Steve F.)
Though Mearsheimer adds that it is essential that the "terrible" crimes against the Palestinians, which the Yishuv understood to be necessary to create the Jewish state, be recognized. He says, "I think it's necessary to admit that and have some kind of symbolic right of return, to put that problem to bed." Bedtime, after 60 years of tossing and turning.
I relate Mearsheimer's rap for 2 reasons. One, I reflect that in my community–the pro-Palestinian left, where there are lots of folks for a one-state solution– we are highly sensitive to issues of narrative. We know that a persuasive narrative of persecution and liberation drove the establishment of the state of Israel (The novel Exodus is on my desk). And so in turn we are motivated by a strong sense of the Palestinian narrative. And that 60-year-old narrative of injustice, more compelling for its suppression, is being imbibed and repeated all over the left and all over progressive America, and Jews like Anna Baltzer, Adam Shapiro and Hannah Mermelstein are leading the way. The Nakba revelation is a lot like the way the Holocaust was discovered by Americans in the 70s, after the 1973 war. And it is being discovered now by non-Palestinians only because of horrifying contemporary conditions: apartheid on the West Bank, and the use of the peace process to cover endless expansion by jihadi Jews, who are licensed by dysfunctional Israel.
I am saying that the storytelling here is enormously important; and my
side is winning because our story is just much more plausible right
now. And it has the weight of history.
The second lesson is that This is still a leftwing narrative, the realists with whom we are allied are not idealists; and while powerful and marginalized, that narrative might vanish if there were some real motions of justice on the part of Israel and the U.S. If they honored that narrative, they could also extinguish it. Put it to bed, as Mearsheimer says.
It amazes me that John Mearsheimer has been as smeared as much as he has. His position isn't that much different from a lot of realist centrists on Israel Palestine. He's really pro-Zionist. His argument is not as morally based as Jimmy Carter's. Carter is actually an Arabist, I believe this reflects his agrarian roots; Mearsheimer's no Arabist. He's closer to Clinton, and Aaron David Miller and Dan Kurtzer. Jeffrey Goldberg probably doesn't disagree with Mearsheimer at all on the solution; and as I say often on this site, Goldberg and Mearsheimer will have to join forces one day if the lobby is going to sever the Congress from Sheldon Adelson, and Livni from Shas. It reminds me that Mearsheimer's error was to say, There is a lobby. Like Cynthia McKinney saying, There's a lobby. He was attacking Jewish influence in the U.S., and that's verboten. His other ideas, after 2 years, are more alive than ever. And meanwhile our discourse is hurtling slowly toward balance.
"He was attacking Jewish influence in the U.S., and that's verboten. "
In those terms, it SHOULD be verboten. Individuals should have the right to speak, write, contact their representatives, as individuals or through organizations.
To suggest that they/we should be silenced puts you in the censoring category, NOT in the free speech category.
Also, its likely and laudable that Obama doesn't suggest "severing" communications from anyone, and certainly not on ethnic or even ideological basis.
The point is to propose BETTER arguments than AIPAC, not to censor theirs.
Weiss on Mearsheimer: "a good number of [his] themes are pro-Zionist: It's a good thing there's a Jewish state. There are states all over the world that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, including Japan and Germany. Israel is a flawed democracy, but so what, tons of them are flawed. I'm for a Jewish state because of the Holocaust and Jews need to feel safe. And I'm for a Palestinian state for the same reason: so they can feel safe."
All very sensible. But I suspect the primary reason Mearsheimer supports the idea of a Jewish state is out of the basic, common sense principle that the Nation of Zion belongs in the Zionist Nation, and not wreaking havoc in the diaspora with its subversiveness, its divided loyalties, and its chicanerous network. Most sensible individual Jews, and patriotic American Jews (as opposed to card carrying members of the Nation of Zion like Witty) are reaching the same conclusions. Ironically, it looks like its going to be patriotic American Jews who end up flogging the destructive Nation of Zion out of our midst. Good for them.
Unfortunately 'your' side isn't winning Weiss.
It might be a good way of making certain zionists feel somewhat less guilty about the situation – but the 'zionist left' does little more than that.
It seems far to pre-occupied with making sure any criticisms of Israel aren't 'anti-semitic' and saying "look I'm a jew and I support a Palestinian state (so I'm not a hypocritical liberal)" than getting anything accomplished. A lot more could be done in terms of putting pressure on American zionist groups to end financial support for Israel's crimes. A lot more.
The situation in Palestine remains terrible – and there is no end in sight.
And as long as the zionist left is pre-occupied with things like apposing boycotts against Israel – nothing will change. One can't help but think that there are zionists in the peace camp who realize that quite well.
Jews, Zionists are not "on the run".
There is discussion as to how to be a good Jew, and what constitutes a healthy Israel.
"In those terms, it SHOULD be verboten. Individuals should have the right to speak, write, contact their representatives, as individuals or through organizations.
To suggest that they/we should be silenced puts you in the censoring category, NOT in the free speech category."
And individuals/organizations who are speaking/writing/working ON BEHALF OF A FOREIGN COUNTRY have to register as agents of said country and must abide by the rules that every other agent of a foreign country must follow. AIPAC and all the countless other Zionist organizations who are working in Israel's interests have wiggled their way out of these basic parameters to this point, just as our tax money that goes to Israel isn't subject to the rules and restrictions that are placed on other countries. Israel and its agents should be subject to the same rules as everyone else. Aside from this being a matter of basic fairness, it will also help Israel's image around the world, as no doubt the current situation adds to the worldwide view of Israel as a nation of Jewish supremacists.
On another note, how does Mearsheimer (or anyone who advocates "two states") envision two states given the realities on the ground? No one ever gives details, because once you start to pursue it you quickly realize that two states are operationally impossible. What would be a Palestinian "state" would be nothing more than a bantustan subject to Israeli control. This is why so many Palestinians and others (such as myself) are rightfully skeptical of those who propose "two states." We feel it's just a way to keep the current state of affairs in order, while paying lip service to a "solution." The only just solution is one democratic state.
Who knows what Mearsheimer really thinks? He pushed the open discussion quite a long way, but I'd say that some of his concessions to Zionist thought were quite possibly tactical. He got nuked enough for saying what he did, and left the door open for others to say more.
As for this:
"It's a good thing there's a Jewish state. There are states all over the world that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, including Japan and Germany. Israel is a flawed democracy, but so what, tons of them are flawed."
This is completely unnecessary concessions to jewish colonial chauvinism. Israel like South Africa like French Algeria is a racist settler state whose basic ideology is hatred of the native population, and whose popular discourse revolves ceaselessly about ways of justifying past and future ethnic cleansing, of the native population expelled, and of those to be expelled in the future. Richard Witty's posts in this blog provide one example after another. It's an herrenvolk democracy with the native population still living in camps around the colony, waiting to left back in. To call this 'flawed' is bizarre. If you'd said, South Africa is a flawed democracy (remember, the blacks were to be citizens of the 'sovereign' bantustans', leaving a non-black majority), everyone would know you were shilling for the hatred of the native Africans, and it's nutty to think that contemporary Germany is in anything like the same category. And so solve this situation, an apology and a new narrative is not going to cut it, any more than in South Africa.
If Zionists are colonists, how come Israel was almost always at war with the Russians?
That's easy to answer Michael: the Soviets aligned themselves with the Arab nations confronting Israel. Israel befitted itself as the primary ally of the US against communism and autocratic regimes. Also there were plenty of anti-Zionist feelings amongst the Soviet Jews in the establishment.
What would a question like that highlight about the Zionist movement setting up a state in a completely alien frontier?
Good answer, Joshua–M Weiss, answer?