A lot has been said about Obama and the Middle East by a lot of smart people, but they all fundamentally miss the point: they take the two-state solution for granted.
If Obama has made the deal that he will lay off Gaza in order to win over the Jewish center to his aims, what has not been factored in is the viability of the two-state solution once such a consensus is achieved. The Palestinians are not prepared to accept the pre-67 borders, and if Abbas tries to effect such a deal it will go nowhere with his people. The irony of Netanyahu’s "victory" this week might well be that it destroyed whatever prayer of a chance there might have been that Abbas could pull it off after all.
Obama may or may not personally be committed to a genuine "two states for two peoples" formula, but his Jewish allies represented by J Street are quite committed to it. Noah Pollak of Commentary is pretty close to the mark with his new label of "barely Zionist", and he and Steve Rosen are quite correct in how marginal their influence in Israeli politics is. But here the South Africa analogy is instructive – to the tiny white liberal (and, incidentally, overwhelmingly Jewish) segment of that polity, which was after a very different solution from the centralized democratic state that the ANC demanded once serious negotiations began. Like the South African Liberals, Meretz, Ha’aretz, and their allies such as J Street will have an important role to play in the drama despite their marginality.
Whatever Obama still hopes he might achieve in the way of a two-state solution, he is sharp enough to know that the most he can do in his steps toward a new "peace process" is buy time while he figures out how to truly extricate himself from the conflict. But even so, few if any of his Jewish allies are willing to confront the real stakes involved, that is, what happens when the two-state solution is obviously dead.
What hasn’t ceased to amaze me is the number of very intelligent people who speak of apartheid being "right around the corner", as opposed to having passed them in the night. It must also be remembered that the international community, despite the perfervid neocon imagination, remains as intractably committed to a "two-state solution" as anyone, partly for the reasons I’ve spelled out in my critiques of the international system and what Israel has on it.
This is the tragedy of Israel and its progressives, as it was for South Africa and even Rhodesia – when they could have gotten the favorable deal, they have been too enamored of their own militancy and hubris, but once they need to sue for it, the other side is no longer interested in such a deal, knowing time is on their side.
And so now, thinking that he’s made Obama blink on the settlements, Netanyahu is raising the stakes, with the hawkish Jewish Democrats such as Schumer now turning the screws on Obama. This is a powerful reminder, not least of all to Obama, that he is earning no favors by trying to appease the Israel Lobby. Netanyahu is overplaying his hand if he thinks he can play the Schumer card.
In both his campaign last year and in his strategy against the Republicans most notably in the recent health care debate, Obama is never more brilliant than in tempting his opponent into overplaying their hand. So in short, the biggest mistake that can be made is to take too seriously the official statements and positions of the administration. Whatever can be despaired about the stubbornness of those progressive Jews who still seek a two-state solution, especially those who can be scarcely called Zionists, the drama that continues to unfold must be allowed to take place as a vitally necessary step in the right direction.
There is an additional reason that this must not be opposed, specifically with respect to J Street: Few critics of the Israel Lobby appreciate how much its foundation is built upon an "official" Jewish community which exists with little other mandate than to be Israel’s voice in American politics. After generations, there is simply no other alternative in bringing down this machine than to support the sort of palace coup that J Street is trying to effect. Whatever exactly it is that J Street seeks to tear down, rebuild, or transform, and they have never been very clear on this question, they remain committed to a complete reconstruction of which their predecessors in the "peace camp" decidedly were not. The winning of Jewish hearts and minds to a progressive alternative will be the job of rabbis, not of politicians, but the task of J Street remains a vital precondition to this.
What the f**** is a concerned USA gentile (with Kant’s ethics, they do exist) without a financial card in his or her deck supposed to make out of this Ross opinion?
Well Ross I agree with you completely on this. For the last few years it has seemed reasonably clear that the two state solution is dead and the best thing that the US could possibly do is figure a way to extricate ourselves from that mess over there. Big problem with that position is that those of us who believe in it lack the political fire power to do anything. Then J-Street came on the scene and I decided to support them as much possible. Maybe I was wrong about a two state solution and what these guys represent could make it happen. But, on the other hand, what if the two state solution is really not possible. If J Street could possibly force the political confrontation that leads to this realization, then it seems that this will open the question: WTF do we do now? This it seems will create a favorable environment for those of us who believe that the best thing to do is for us to just get out of the way and let the warring tribes of Palestine and Israel sort it out for themselves.
So Citizen, to answer your question (if I am not reading too much into Ross’s argument) a political dynamic may result that would move a political position you hold from the margins onto center stage.
Not to put to fine a point on the issue, but if the two state solution is dead, than Israel is effectively on palliative care. If Obama doesn’t get wise to the fact that his “good friends” in Israel are perfectly willing to drag him through the mud and undermine his foreign policy — through military force, if that’s what it takes — to get what they want, and do the smart thing and cut our ties with Israel, then Israel is merely going to lose our support a couple years later when our economy implodes and China stops buying debt that we’ll never be able to pay off. And then Israel will be alone.
Sooner or later, the Palestinian refugees will be able to go home, and when they do you can believe that a massive chunk of Israel’s population is going to depart faster than you can say “white flight.” Then we’ll all just put it up to a vote (democracy for the win!), name the place Palestine again and people there can go back to living side by side as Jews, Muslims and Christians like they did perfectly well before European Zionists stuck their noses into it.
The so-called two-state solution has been dead. It’s been dead from the beginning; it was never a viable option. The only question is whether the Israelis will nuke the USA once they realize they’ve lost. The South Africans dismantled their nukes once they realized the game was over.
Obama’s nuclear speech today didn’t inspire any confidence: not a word about Israel’s extremely dangerous nuclear arsenal.
The Palestinians are not prepared to accept the pre-67 borders Eh?
I assumed he meant post-1967 borders, i.e. colonies in the OPT would have to go.
Why did Obama insert himself into the conflict so publicly in the first place? Did he really think that some words on Palestine would help him with Muslim world opinion as he continues to send thousands of more troops to Af-Pak?
This is a very fine piece, Jack.
(1) 2-state is dead
(2) Israeli apartheid is already here
(3) concerned outsiders waste time arguing about a solution which is no longer feasible, and fritter away the time they have left to make the next best solution work
(4) even if it’s too late to save Israel as the kind of Jewish state it currently is, a J-Street palace coup will be necessary bring non-Likudnik leadership to American Jewish political institutions
My only quibble: “After generations, there is simply no other alternative in bringing down this machine than to support the sort of palace coup that J Street is trying to effect.” That is the only alternative to bringing down AIPAC and maintaining continued American support for Israeli defense. It is not the only way to bring down AIPAC.
A successful legal case against AIPAC for espionage would accomplish the same thing, albeit with more damage to the American political system and Jewish standing in America. Recall U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty’s efforts to “end [the Israeli spy investigation] with minimal damage to AIPAC”. AIPAC has to win every time. FBI counterintelligence only needs one win, as long as it is big enough to expose AIPAC as a threat to America, getting it formally and legally labeled as a lobby that serves foreign interests which are markedly different than those of the rest of America.
There might not be a collaborator like McNulty in place next time to steer early Department of Justice decisions on who to charge and with what. (see link) As long as pro-colonization American Zionists continue to betray America, there will be a next time, and another, and another. I would prefer the palace coup and continued support strictly for Israeli defense, but if storming the gates is the only way to get the job done, so be it and it will be on the heads of Israeli supporters who stood by and let their extremists betray America.
Filing sheds light on FBI probe, JTA, Ron Kampeas
The two-state solution is alive.
It still overwhelmingly makes sense over the alternatives available, if the concept of self-governance is a relevant one.
definitely a disorganized rough draft, but i’m not giving it any more time..
‘Making sense’ is certainly a reasonable prerequisite for a successful solution. I agree with you: a two-state solution would be better for everyone. However, a plan can make all the sense in the world, but if it isn’t feasible, it’s dead on arrival.
Can you outline a realistic path to a stable two-state solution from the current situation? By stable I mean one where Palestinians aren’t living in a collaborationist puppet state, governed from Tel Aviv by proxy and consisting of a dozen or more separate fragments each surrounded by 15 ft high walls and connected by thin corridors. Do you expect resentment to dissipate from people who continued to be screwed, or do think they can be forever contained like ants in several ant farms connected by plastic tunnels? The underlying problem is occupation. ‘Occupation-lite’ will calm things down temporarily, but it is not a viable long term solution.
One of two things must happen for Israel to incorporate the West Bank into an Israel that will retain its formal status as a Jewish state. Either Israel withdraws the majority of Jewish colonies from the OPT allowing a sovereign Palestinian state to arise, or Israel successfully ethnically cleanses the West Bank. I don’t think the Israeli government is capable of undertaking the former, even if all of a sudden it had the support of 90% of its population. There are too many private and public social, political, economic, and military interests enmeshed in the colonization campaign, and the central government cannot simply tell them to do something that they don’t want to do, and it will not and cannot force them to do it either.
Successful conclusion of the ethnic cleansing campaign is far more likely, but that is not saying much. Are there not as many Palestinians as Israeli Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea? Exactly where are they going to disappear to?
If the colonization objective is to clear Arabs out of the West Bank and annex it as sovereign Israeli land, and it most certainly is, then gradualist ethnic cleansing successes to date can only be described as local. An analogy might be squeezing a half-empty tube of toothpaste to force all the toothpaste from one side to the other. If your objective is to force all toothpaste from the tube, pushing it all to one end is a start, but you still have to get it out of the tube.
Look at a map of the distribution of colonies and ‘closed military zones’ in the West Bank. There is a symmetry to their distribution that is not coincidental. The Israelis aren’t trying to squeeze them across the Jordan River, the occupied West Bank’s only non-Israeli international boundary, they are trying to break up and squeeze each of the fragments inside the boundaries of the West Bank, presumably hoping that they will all become miserable enough to emigrate. Indeed, it is impossible not to notice the string of colonies, surrounded by land slated for further colonization, running from the northern boundary on the Jordan River almost all the way to the Dead Sea. Not only are Palestinians not being squeezed towards the only international boundary, they are deliberately being kept from it.
Gradualist ethnic cleansing has had some success locally in support of de-Arabizing Jerusalem, but I have not seen any evidence that it has worked within the West Bank as a whole. Has it reduced the total number of Palestinians in the WB? Moving in more and more Jewish colonists doesn’t in and of itself reduce the number of Palestinians, it merely alters the ratio. It doesn’t even remotely change it enough to avoid dealing with the question of Palestinian human rights. There are simply too many living in the West Bank for Israel to accomplish the objective of annexation of the West Bank, and forever ignore the question of their status. It would be either equal rights and an end to the current government’s institutionalized preference for Jews and discrimination against Arabs, i.e., the end of the Jewish state and the birth of a new kind of Israel, or the folly of trying to continue its current military occupation policies under Israeli law. How long would international support last if they would be so brazen?
The ruckus about ‘the demographic problem’ that had Ariel Sharon so freaked out was fundamentally a reaction to recognition that the gradualist strategy has failed. I think that (and if anyone disagrees, I am always ready to hear opposing or alternate views) punctuated ethnic cleansing events during wartime are the only substantive successes that Israelis have had moving Palestinians out of areas they want to annex. An abstraction of one problem is that each cleansing event pushes Palestinians out to areas which become targets for the next round, and the process has now moved up against international borders. The land that Israelis need to push Palestinians into in order to annex the West Bank belongs to Jordan, which despite the fantasies of some Zionists is not a Palestinian state. Their admirably hospitable people already host 1.4 million Palestinian refugees, but I suspect that they will not want a sudden influx of several million more. Similarly, Egypt doesn’t want Gazan Palestinians any more than Israel does.
If colonies cannot be withdrawn, and gradualist ethnic cleansing has failed, then the only solution left allowing Israel to annex the West Bank and retain the institutional Jewish nature of the central government is another Nakba. Wartime opportunities for punctuated ethnic cleansing have been scarce since 1973. Is there any chance one will arise before Israel is forced to make a decision? Even if one arose and the Israeli government seized the opportunity, would Israel survive the world’s outraged horror? How many more decades do you think the Lobby will retain power? I’ll make a wild guess and say two, or maybe three.
Perhaps this disorganized narrative can be condensed. There can’t be a two-state solution unless Palestinians can actually have enough of their land on which to organize a viable state. They won’t have enough land unless most or all of the colonies in the OPT are withdrawn. The colonies are not going to be withdrawn. Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which IS the ultimate objective of the colonization campaign, will require either violent expulsion of most or all Palestinians, transfer of gunpoint apartheid governance from the current military occupation authority to one institutionalized within Israeli law, i.e. no fobbing off responsibility to ‘another entity’, or eventual acceptance of Palestinians as full and equal citizens. Of course, Israel could just keep kicking the can down the road, forgoing annexation, continuing colonization, and failing with the gradualist ethnic cleansing strategy. Success in either delaying annexation with its difficult choices, or adoption of the middle annexation option will last only as long as the toleration of the nations upon whose trade Israeli survival depends.
This conflict has ceased to be a regional concern, and the instability that it injects into the global economic system threatens many nations more powerful than Israel. Without the United States to run interference, they are not going to accept biblical stories of inheritance as reasons for injury done to them. The Lobby does Israel a grave disservice by facilitating its refusal to negotiate in good faith a stable final status agreement.
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/sigh one of many errors, but i have to correct this one, wish there were an edit option
One of two things must happen for Israel to
incorporate the West Bank into an Israel that willretain its formal status as a Jewish state.