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
It seems to me the window of opportunity is closing rapidly. I do not know ant young folks today, with any knowledge of the issue, that favors a two state solution.
The one state solution would be required to end/dismantle aparthid, and provide for the right of return. Queen Noor gave an especially clear accounting of the need of the refugees, and numbered them at 4 million.
It may be that even if Israel were to "accept" a two state solution, now, that the US may have trouble gathering support for this.
eh. it was a nice run.
The Wallerstein is excellent. Moderate in tone, dispassionate, and to the extent I know the history, largely accurate.
Finkelstein is devastating as usual. Alas, he's been successfully demonized in many circles.
Ideally, the one state solution is the way to go–freedom for everybody. I don't see anything noble about a Jewish state or a Muslim state or a Christian state or any other sort of state based on religion or ethnicity.
Unfortunately there are too many haters on both sides and I'd be afraid it could turn into a rerun of the Lebanese civil war (or more recently, Iraq). I think Chomsky and others have suggested that if you think a one state solution is best, you'd probably have to go through the two state solution first anyway, to build trust.
But that would depend on the Israelis offering a decent two state solution.
So there's not much room for optimism here.
I see that Wallerstein still includes a careful 'probably' on this very interesting point:
The Soviet Union soon dropped Israel. This was probably primarily because its leaders quickly became afraid of the impact of the creation of the state on the attitudes of Soviet Jewry, who seemed overly enthusiastic and hence potentially subversive from Stalin's point of view. Israel in turn dropped any sympathy for the socialist camp in the Cold War, and made clear its fervent desire to be considered a full-fledged member of the Western world, politically and culturally.
Yeah sure whatever.
Back on Planet Earth, here's the REAL news:
Top IDF officer: Hamas use of children during Gaza op was 'monstrous'
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division Commander on Thursday branded Hamas' use of women and children during Israel's recent offensive in the coastal strip as "monstrous" and "inhumane."
Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg said the civilians were sent by Hamas to transfer weapons to gunmen during the offensive. He also accused the Islamist militant group of booby-trapping many of the civilians' homes.
"Entire families in Gaza lived on top of a barrel of explosives for months without knowing," Eisenberg said.
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More than 1,250 Palestinians were reportedly killed during Israel's offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory. According to estimates by Gaza officials, more than half of the Palestinian dead were civilians.
Israel has been heavily criticized for the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties in the operation. Eisenberg, however, asserted that Israel Defense Forces soldiers adhered to moral principles while fighting in Gaza.
Palestinian civilians, meanwhile, have accused Hamas of forcing them to stay in homes from which gunmen shot at Israeli soldiers during the recent hostilities in Gaza, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Thursday.
The Italian paper also quoted a doctor at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital as disputing the number of Palestinians said to have been killed in the campaign.
"It's possible that the death toll in Gaza was 500 or 600 at the most, mainly youths aged 17 to 23 who were enlisted by Hamas – who sent them to their deaths," he said.
13 Israelis were also killed during the 3-week operation, which was aimed at halting rocket fire on southern Israel and destroying Hamas' infrastructure.
The Gaza doctor was further quoted as saying: "Perhaps it is like Jenin in 2002. At the beginning they spoke about 1,500 dead, and at the end it turned out to be only 54 – of whom 45 were militants."
He was referring to the Israel Defense Forces battle with Palestinian militants in the West Bank town that took place during Operation Defensive Shield at the height of the second intifada.
Who would want to live in a state run by Hamas?
No way the Israeli Jews agree to give up their guns to the Hamas. Would you?
I personally like the idea of a non-theocratic, non-tribal state, but I just don't see how it is going to work given radical Muslim and Jewish fundamentalism. Wouldn't they just end up having civil war after civil war like they have had in Lebanon and Yugoslavia?
Perhaps I'm wrong and the people there could do it, but I tend to be pessimistic about such things. It's not America over there. Yes WE can, but I'm not sure THEY can.
What would a one state solution look like that could insure the safety of both Palestinians and Jews?
Maybe the Jewish state is merely shaking out the weak links.
Think about it from the pharisaic perspective: the more nastily and belligerently Israel behaves, the more it forces a choice from on-the-fence diaspora Jews to either get on board the Zionist program or get the hell out of organized Jewry.
Perhaps it has calculated that those who leave wouldn’t have been much use to it anyway (or, like Phil, are a liability), and those who stay will be more likely to emigrate to Israel as the temperature is turned up outside. And those that don’t actually ingather but remain diaspora Zionists will be the leanest, meanest, nastiest verbal street fighters on its behalf, like Dershowitz, and D. Horowitz and insiders like Joe Lieberman and Rahm Emanuel.
This isn’t suicide, this is the means by which a very nasty band of historical outlaws hunkers down and survives.
I say, let it survive on bread and water.
Israel has lasted longer than the Third Reich. If it wants to continue to exist as a Jewish state it must live peacefully with its neighbors, which is why some consider it to be committing suicide with its use of oppressive military might. Treating Palestinians and their nation like Polish Jews and territory ripe for settling cannot be sustained much longer. Germany's unconditional defeat in 1945 was a blessing for its people; it is doubtful such a defeat for Israel will have as desirable an outcome, which is why Israel must negotiate a generous peace with Palestine and its other neighbors. What that peace should look like is an Israeli state confined to its legal, 1947, borders and a Palestinian state within the rest of what was their nation, free of internal interference from Israel and the US. Palestinians would be very generous to accept such a peace, and I hope they will, but it must be accomplished through the legality of the UN and with a cessation of US military smuggling to Israel.
There have always been marginal, mixed, cooperative political parties like Hadash and MAKI in Israel, and Palestinian political movements, also overwhelmingly identified with the Socialist International, which dropped hints about accepting Jews in a Palestinian state.
The problem is that the mainstream institutions (trade unions, etc) on both sides are parallel and exclusive, currently on the Palestinian side and from 1913-1961 on the Israeli side. You would have to institute comprehensive legal equality in Israel and the West Bank, which is generally rejected because its citizenship features would privilege the people *who are there now*, long before the Diaspora lobbies on either side benefited.
There is also a crisis of basic mutual recognition which the South Africans did not have to deal with, and so much clean-up to be done in creating a civil society. The Israeli Islamic Movement is an example of an Israeli participant in civil society that does not recognize the State of Israel as a permanent fixture, but Hamas cannot evolve to that sort of platform. Nor is Israel Beitenu going to leave behind its preference for more land and fewer Arabs.
Strong state institutions setting the "rules of the game" would work but the whole point is that the militias are uncontrollable, and can exercise state-scale violence.
A one-state solution is likely to resemble Croatia in 1995. Demographics only work against guns when enough democracy exists that the guns can be put away.
I like elements of the single-state idea. One is that of real equality and a continuity of respect for indigenous peoples, while accepting recent immigrants.
I dislike more elements of the single-state.
I especially dislike the consequences of a bitterly divided electorate based on balances of 51 – 49%. That is the definition of civil strife.
Israel/Palestine is NOT the US in 2000, which did not go to civil war over a grossly unfair election process with enormous consequences.
Israel/Palestine WOULD go to war. They'd kill each other, with a likely consequence of Israeli victory, resulting in larger ethnic cleansing.
The other element that dislike about the single-state proposal is that it originates NOT among those care deeply about the well-being of both parties, but that it originates from those that shift between Palestinian nationalism and single-state advocacy.
They suspect and villify Zionists that would consider a "democratic" single-state solution under the name Israel, on the basis of CURRENT plebiscite.
At the same time, they excuse Palestinian nationalists that would consider a "democratic" Palestine, on the basis of diaspora Palestinian plebiscite.
It conflicts with my view of justice constructed under the very amazing model that my Zionist aunt (not the one Phil knew) proposed when dividing cakes.
"One person does the dividing. The OTHER gets to pick."
Right Witty, as it has been for some time, one person does the dividing, and also gets to pick, and the dumb goy Uncle Sam supports this at the expense of his own family. As it should be according to Jewish Law, the goy can do the dreck work on Saturday.
I'm not exclusively blaming jews. Truman and Joe the Plumber are were/are both German Americans. You know the Germans, as Churchill said, they're at your throat or at your feet.
Double that for Ashkenaizis.
Witty: It conflicts with my view of justice constructed under the very amazing model that my Zionist aunt (not the one Phil knew) proposed when dividing cakes.
"One person does the dividing. The OTHER gets to pick."
Uh, ok. It seems like Israel has done the dividing, let the Palestinians pick.
I think the Israelis realize it’s AMERICANS who are suicidal. We’ve got unsustainable debt that’s only going to get larger under Obama. Culturally and morally, we’ve now got a complete lack of identity. On the right we’ve got money-worshippers and internationalist corporatists who couldn’t care less about the country’s survival. On the Left we’ve got atheistic flakes and internationalist universalists who couldn’t care less about the country’s survival.
The Israelis want to press their advantage of having a Jewish Zionist and Zionist sympathetic fifth column in America while it’s still worth something, and the best way to do this is to get rid of the Jewish hand-wringers and empower guys like Emanuel and Lieberman to speak on behalf of Jewry — the mad dogs and Svengalis who will ring the current but increasingly lessening and irrelevant Jewish advantage in America for all its worth before the country goes into complete and final decline.
They want a team that will efficiently loot the sinking Titanic of jewels and bearer bonds as the Jews-only lifeboat idles below.
Richard, you did it again–you made some good points and then you ruined them with your own brand of one-sidedness. Current plebiscite? You mean where the 20 percent are treated as second class citizens and there's a 40 year apartheid policy in place for the Palestinians under occupation?
I agree, though, that a one state solution under current circumstances would scare me if I lived there, no matter which side I was on. Crazy bigots aplenty on both sides.
There's a nonsimian Anonymous on the block. Welcome Anonymous.
Bravo pulaski!
I love it: Let palestinian's pick which side of apartheid wall they would like to live on, and swap. We could also do the exchange of populations of Tel Aviv and Gaza.
Lovely thought experiment.
Thanks for understanding.Thanks for basing me. I wish there are many gay people like you. Yes my lifestyle IS funny and yet I am proud of it. I made my mind to become gay as a young man and I never regretted at all..
I am sorry but everybody talks about israel victims, but what about Palestinian gays and lesbians? Do you know that more then 10 lesbians were killed in Pamallah becvause they were accused of spying? 2 young gays were executed in Gaza during the fighting. How do I know? My husband is a Palestinian from Gaza and he has contacts. This is why I am in tears for my community in Gaza and Ramallah. Thanks to Allah we collected $18000 at our annual nude salsa dance competition. i hope it will help. Also we donated blood and have sent it by UPS.
I wish all gay and straight can love each other like brothers.
The US should immediately recognize the State of Palestine with no preconditions. This will jumpstart the peace process by creating a partner with the authority to conduct real negotiations, bypassing and nullifying Isreal's objections and tactics. Boundaries, land for peace, status of Jerusalem, illegal settlers, right of return, etc. etc. can be negotiated subsequently
Good idea.
"The other element that dislike about the single-state proposal is that it originates NOT among those care deeply about the well-being of both parties, but that it originates from those that shift between Palestinian nationalism and single-state advocacy."
How about Tony Judt?
you anti-Semites on this forum are disgusting!
LONG LIVE ISRAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LONG LIVE THE JEWISH PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May there be TRUE PEACE and LOVE between Jews and Palestinians. The outside world cares only for their own HATRED (the LEFT says "the Nazis didn't finish the Jews. We will! The RIGHT says non-westerners are not people).
Can Salvaggio be explicit who the "anti-Semites" are? I have been the victim of anti-Semitic violence as a schoolby so I know it when I see it. There's a knee-jerk reaction that says any criticism of the Israeli theocracy is anti-Semitism. Is any criticism of the US government anti-Americnism? And incidentally, Arabs are Semites.