Marty Peretz is embracing Netanyahu, saying he wants peace without "illusions." Oh, and George Mitchell is "silly." So spake the lobby.
How interesting that TNR contributor Michael Walzer, who to his great credit has called for heavy pressure on Israel now to defeat the settler movement, is now closer to…
John Mearsheimer, guestblogging for Steve Walt at Foreign Policy, who says that he's with Ehud Olmert. If Obama doesn't buck the lobby now, Mearsheimer says, the two state solution is cooked and Israel
is looking at a Hobson's choice of apartheid state or ethnic cleansing:
The Obama administration will surely try to push Netanyahu to change his thinking about a two-state solution and work to give the Palestinians a real state of their own. The Israel lobby, however, will adamantly defend Israel's right to do whatever it wants in the Occupied Territories and make it impossible for the president to put significant pressure on Israel. Netanyahu, like all Israeli leaders, understands this basic fact of life. He knows that he will just have to say a few nice words about the "peace process" and blame the whole thing on the Palestinians, who he believes are a bunch of terrorists anyway, and he will be pretty much free to do whatever he wants in Gaza and the West Bank.
It seems clear to me and to many smart people I know that this story does not have a happy ending. Indeed, it looks like a disastrous ending. Greater Israel cannot be a democratic state, because there will soon be — if there aren't already — more Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea than there are Israeli Jews. So, if you give each person one vote, Israel becomes Palestine. That is not going to happen anytime soon, if ever, which leaves two possible outcomes: apartheid and expelling the Palestinians — and there are more than 5 million of them — from Greater Israel. Talk about repulsive options. It is worth remembering that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that if there is no two-state solution, Israel will end up in a South Africa-like situation and that will mean the end of the Jewish state. In effect, he is saying that Israel is turning itself into an apartheid state.
My bottom line is that Israel, with the backing of the lobby, is pursuing a remarkably foolish — Ehud Olmert would say suicidal — policy towards the Palestinians.
I would appreciate it greatly if Israel's American backers would explain what I am missing here.
I can't bet against Mearsheimer; he has been ahead of the curve again and again
on important ideas– the Iraq war, the return of realism, the
role of the Israel lobby, the rightward shift in the Israeli polity,
and reverse aliyah (all the Israelis living here). Foreign Policy really ought to give him a permanent platform.
"choice of apartheid state or ethnic cleansing" OR Israel becomes a true multicultural society. Now there's an idea.
Do some lights hate Mearsheimer not only because he's a gentile (like Churchill, the English playwright), but also because he's of Germanic background? I mean it's not like Germans have no cultural history other than the 12 years of Hitler, is it? And doesn't Mearsheimer combine both American and Germanic classic values? Isn't it time to get beyond The Producers?
As Citizen points out, some luminaries can't get past Walt and Mearsheimer's ethnicity. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote a snide and puerile review of Walt and Mearsheimer's talk at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) forum in Washington 2.5 years ago. Milbank had nothing of substance to say, but managed to smear them extensivley and to refer to Walt and Mearsheimer as "two blue-eyed men with Germanic surnames". The CAIR forum and Milbank's column were right after the Lebanon war of 2006. Bet that Milbank could not get away with such blatant smears now post-Gaza.
Milbank's 2006 column here:
link to washingtonpost.com
Why does Olmert say one thing and do another? He seems to understand the dilemma: be happy with 78% of historic Palestine (the United Nations gifted Jews with 54%) or risk losing it all in the long run. Then under his watch, twin atrocities in Lebanon and Gaza, exposing the ugly face of the zionist project for the whole world to see. Hard to figure him out….maybe he secretely agrees with Ghadafi: "Israelstine" from the river to the sea!
If Israel treaties with Syria, would that constitute a happy middle, if not a happy ending?
How would that improve the situation for the Palestinians?
laurie, unfortunately neither israelis not palestinians have been preparing for the idea of a multicultural society. The former because they think they can (continue to) get away without it, the latter because they can't trust the Israelis to actually try and live together as equals. In the meantime, though the politics of the situation may appear to be resolvable (eg, through the two-state mirage), the psychology of the Israeli collective may be too far gone by now to allow true accommodation. You'll say – it's been done by others before, in similarly intractable situations (cf south africa? canada? ireland? south and north america?). To which I'll say – those did not involve the Israeli branded jews, who spent the past 60 years turning themselves into the most particularist and arrogant society on the planet (yes, worse than the french…). Exceptionalism based on race or religion can be resolved after much blood shed, at least, in principle (ie, given the will). But exceptionalism based on deep sense of tribalism were usually resolved only when one tribe has entirely annihilated another. And by tribe I don't mean palestinians, who i see (mistakenly perhaps) as more of a collection of clans, in the process of acquiring a genuine national identity (being persecuted can do that). I actually happen to believe the palestinian may prove to be far readier than israelis for life within a multi-cultural/multi-religious society (after all – that IS the reality in many Arab countries which somehow manage to chug along). Not that it would be easy, but it is possible. The israelis, OTOH, seem to be in the throes of a reverse process where national identity retreats into some weird form of exclusive tribalism, probably as over-compensation to counter doubts about its own legitimacy. And that only breeds exclusion and isolation.
Witty hopes for a happy middle, because he needs to see something happy somewhere. Many in Israel will no doubt think that the best way to neutralize the palestinian quest for nationahood is to blunt the support they can look forward to from surrounding arab states. it wouldn't surprise me to see netaniahu try (not because of any genuine desire for peace, which he doesn't think Israel needs, but as a ploy). I'd however be surprised to see the coalition about to shape up be willing to give up the Golan in its entirety, which is what it would take.
So keep wishing witty. It'll keep you from crying….
*RE: "My bottom line is that Israel, with the backing of the lobby, is pursuing a remarkably foolish — Ehud Olmert would say suicidal — policy towards the Palestinians. I would appreciate it greatly if Israel's American backers would explain what I am missing here."
*ELLIOTT ABRAMS SPEAKING TO THE REPUBLICAN JEWISH COALITION IN FT. LAUDERDALE THIS PAST SATURDAY:
On the subject of Israel, Abrams predicts some friction in the near term between Obama and Netanyahu because the Obama administration believes that the main problem in brokering an Israeli/Palestinian final status agreement is Israel’s settlement expansion. This, according to Abrams, is false. “I can illustrate why [this is false] very simply,” said Abrams. “Look at what [Ehud] Barak proposed ten years ago. Look at what Olmert offered recently. Olmert offered more.”
*MY COMMENT: This is a beautiful example of neocon ‘logic’. Olmert offered more? Oh really! The neocons have been insisting for nearly ten years that Barak offered everything (including the kitchen sink) to Arafat and that it was all Arafat’s fault that there was no peace agreement under Clinton. Was this all just a ‘BIG LIE’?
*ENTIRE POST – link to heatherrobinson.net
@ dana – With the election of Bibi it is clear Israel is becoming a failed state. Israel has slowly been crushing the Palestinians since '67, blood has been flowing and yet it is Israel's future existence that is in question. The Palestinians have lived through other occupiers and it is obvious they do not fear the Israelis or they would not have elected Hamas. Once the U.S. pulls away from Israel, Israel will self destruct. The dream has turned into a nightmare. Embracing the Palestinians is Israel's only hope. How sad that the Jews dwelt on being victims so long that they became their own victim.
Reality is not a strong point of nationalists according to the guy who wrote Animal Farm and 1984.
Orwell should not be regarded as a guide to 'reality', in my view.