I wrote just now that many on the left believe that Israel destroyed the idea of the Jewish state with Gaza. This is the intellectual news of Gaza. As the center tries to hold on to what is left of the two-state solution (and certainly I will support the center if it comes up with some fair solution on those lines), Gaza has revealed a very dark side of Israel to the progressive coalition of which I am a part. Several important writers are saying, directly, or in effect: Israel is committing suicide.
Daniel Levy shocked me when he used that expression in a phone call organized by Brit Tzedek 2 weeks ago. Deeply upset by Gaza, with a tremulous voice, Levy said that the mainstream American Jewish lobby was "driving Israel toward national suicide." It was an electrifying quote, and I am still seeking the transcript to understand exactly what Levy meant. (I was taking notes by hand).
But that theme of suicide– or the destruction of Israel's legitimacy by its own hand–is all over the writings on the progressive side. "Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold" is the title of Immanuel Wallerstein's great piece for the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. "Why Israel Won't Survive" is a brilliant piece by Ali Abunimah that says that Israel has utterly destroyed its legitimacy and is now South Africa, "maintained in existence only
through Western support and constant use of violence to prevent the
surviving indigenous population from exercising political rights within
the country, or returning from forced exile."
Here is Mark LeVine on Al-Jazeera asking who can save Israel from itself. Here is Rolf Verleger at MoonofAlabama stating that Israel couldn't care less about the 2-state solution. Here is Norman Finkelstein saying that the Gaza slaughter was launched specifically to defeat the two-state solution. Here is Noam Chomsky on Znet echoing Abunimah and writing that Israel's "ultimate destruction" looks more and more likely:
Israel is deliberately turning itself into perhaps the most hated country in
the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the
West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its
persistent shocking crimes for long. Decades ago, I wrote that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel" are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction. Regrettably, that judgment looks more and more plausible.
One of my jokes these days is Noam Mearsheimer. These two intellectual leaders' positions are closer and closer, and indistinguishable from Abunimah's analysis. Here's Mearsheimer in LRB, speaking flatly of Israel having "cleansed" Palestine in '48 and now destroying its legitimacy.
The two-state solution is probably dead.
‘Greater Israel’ will
be an apartheid state. Ehud Olmert has sounded a warning note on this
score, but he has done nothing to stop the settlements and by starting
the Gaza war he doomed what little hope there was for creating a viable
Palestinian state.
The Palestinians will continue to resist the
occupation, and Hamas will still be able to strike Israel with rockets
and mortars, whose range and effectiveness are likely to improve.
Palestinians will increasingly make the case that Greater Israel should
become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews
enjoy equal political rights. They know that they will eventually
outnumber the Jews, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish
state. This proposal is already gaining ground among Israel’s
Palestinian citizens, striking fear into the hearts of many Israelis,
who see them as a dangerous fifth column.
The end of Israel as a Jewish state. This cry is now taken up across the progressive/realist world that has been empowered by Obama. Agree or disagree, that is the news. –Phil Weiss
