The fact that the Obama administration first communicated to Jewish leaders its determination to block the progress of the U.N.’s Goldstone report on Gaza is evidence of a deal. The Obama administration has cut a deal with centrist-liberal Jewish groups along these terms. We will forget Gaza ever happened. We will never say a word about Gaza. We will always state that the U.S. alliance with Israel is indivisible. We will work with other nations on Iran (but we won’t allow an attack on Iran). You must help us with your people and the settlements. We believe that freezing the colonization process is the only way to get a two-state solution.
Obama, and Rahm Emanuel too, believe that they can gain enough of the Jewish leadership this way to bring American Jews along in support of Obama as he applies pressure. Because the intelligent Jewish leadership knows that Iran is not the main threat, Israel is in danger from the occupation, and this is the last chance for the two-state solution, to preserve the Jewish state. Notice that the Times is on board with the agenda; not a word about Goldstone; but the U.S. must use its power and pressure to bring about two states.
Through this commitment from the Jewish center-left, Obama can then pressure Netanyahu on the two-state solution. It’s a gamble because of where the center breaks. Notice that Chuck Schumer is against him on this, and Anthony Weiner too, and Steve Rothman of New Jersey hasn’t been helpful. It is amazing that Weiner and Schumer have openly sandbagged Obama as he presses forward with his Cairo initiative. But these men will ultimately fall into line if Obama can grow his political base among Jewish Democrats. It’s a gamble, and the board is changing. If Obama said a word about Gaza, he figures, he will lose the game in a second. (Because the people who read this blog have no power in those chambers, where the deer and the Israel lobby play. We only have power in the discourse.)
So: Will Obama come to the J Street conference next month? I say he will; and that his appearance there will be a giant boost to the progressive/centrist Zionist community and a slap in the face to AIPAC, and a sign to Rothman and Weiner and Schumer that the politics are changing and they better get on board, the new center.
This negotiation is all taking place out of sight, but it’s happening. It’s the deal. But will it work? Ah, that’s another question. (And yes, there we have power.)
Related posts:
- Netanyahu knows the deal for Shalit, even if Conference of Presidents doesn’t
- Berman says Congress won’t deal with Hamas-Fatah. But will Obama?
- A Hopeful View of Obama’s Deal With the ‘Loony Liberals’ of the Israel Lobby
- Finally my wisdom is also the conventional wisdom: deal with one-time terrorists
- ‘I agree, Schumer is a pain’
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So why cave on the settlement freeze?
More likely scenario: Obama has decided that he needs the Israel lobby on his side on domestic issues – primarily healthcare. Better to pander to the lobby and save domestic face, than take risks on I/P that can only end badly. Cynical, but not stupid.
The moderate Israel lobby — certainly Brit Tzedek, maybe J Street– calculated back in May that healthcare would be Obama’s pressure point; at least, a distraction; optimally, leverage.
This was predictable (not the Gaza/Goldstone quid pro quo as early as last May, when Brit Tzedek started its campaign in support of a two state solution.
The deceitful thing is, Brit Tzedek relies on and advances Dennis Ross’s enunciation that the two state solution will not work; it will fall apart, and the pieces will consist of Palestinian hopes and sovereignty and will fragment in favor of Israel. In other words, two-state is a sucker bet, but the only wager Palestine is being offered.
correction: This was predictable (not the Gaza/Goldstone quid pro quo but certainly the rest) as early as last May, when Brit Tzedek started its campaign in support of a two state solution.
The deceitful thing is, Brit Tzedek relies on and advances Dennis Ross’s enunciation that the two state solution will not work; it will fall apart, and the pieces will consist of Palestinian hopes and sovereignty and will fragment in favor of Israel. In other words, two-state is a sucker bet, but the only wager Palestine is being offered; heads Israel wins, tails Palestine loses.
Nothing is really changed, as long as US Congress remains bought and paid for by Israel lobby.
As Michael Moore said to Larry King yesterday, the only solution is solely federal taxpayer
campaign financing coupled with free TV exposure of electoral candidates. That would knock out the power of the special interest groups. I would add, get rid of the legal fiction allowing corporations the same civil rights as human individuals.
I don’t understand this. I’m sure Obama as head of the party can exert some pressure on Jewish Democrats. But how does that translate into pressure on Israel? Is there any possibility that he can cut off aid if Israel doesn’t do what he asks? Would Schumer or Weiner agree to that? Would J Street?
Phil quoted M J Rosenberg’s observation that DailyKos, a major Democratic blog, was loathe to engage the Israel/Palestine issue, which M J hoped to force into mainstream foreign policy debate.
If DailyKos is not on board to pressure Jewish democrats, and it surely is not, and if DailyKos is a major and influential Democratic forum, what other forms of popular pressure can Obama exert?
Daily Kos is PEP Central, and the admins are actively hostile to I/P issues.
Potsherd,
Agreed, but do you know why or who has forced DK into ‘actively hostile’ territory?
What’s to be done about it?
What alternative forum of comparable heft is out there to press an American version of how foreign policy ought to be run, to represent American, rather than Israel’s, interests?
A positive US-Iran relationship is so very much in the interest of the US; Israel has acted repeatedly to derail such a rapprochement. It IS possible to ‘love them both,’ you know: America is big enough, diverse enough, and wealthy enough (er, we used to be…) to love them both, both Iran and Israel.
Besides, Iran doesn’t cost US 1/1000th of the treasure & blood that Israel has cost US.
Psycho – I think Daily Kos only mirrors the Democratic Party, which is under allegiance to AIPAC. I see nothing Obama could do to change this.
I agree that it is in the USA’s interest to make Iran an ally. It’s so obvious, yet all I hear
in MSM is Iran is our eternal enemy. It’s the flip side of the coin that Israel and the USA have identical interests. It’s depressing the average American buys such coinage.
Is there any possibility that he can cut off aid if Israel doesn’t do what he asks?
Theoretically, yes there is. President Obama inherited a truly staggering amount of power. He and his team are still learning the ropes, getting a feel to where and how they can nudge the system, and assessing the potential consequences of varying degrees of the exercise of weapons from their political toolbox. The political resources he has to bear upon this problem are quite limited at the moment, thus effective low-level pressure is problematic. However, he always has the ‘nuclear option’, an executive power that Congress enshrined into law 22USC6303. He can unilaterally eviscerate the ’special relationship’, and Israel-firsters in Congress can’t do a damn thing about it except overturn or rewrite this law over his veto. I realize that this is NOT going to happen. I am merely pointing out that he does have the capability to do so, with the consequent lever of threatening to do it, however circumspectly.
22USC6303 states that “”if the President determines that a … foreign person (person defined to include governments or non-state entities) has engaged in … the use, development, production, stockpiling, or other acquisition of any nuclear explosive … the President shall, by order, impose the [following] sanctions … Ban on dealings in Government finance [and] Restrictions on operations”. Follow the link to see the details.
It is well-documented that Israel has nuclear weapons, and thus is liable to sanctions under this law. However, Israel has not publicly acknowledged their possession of nuclear weapons, providing American presidents enough ‘deniability’ to avoid being in the position where they should be enforcing the law.
Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. One reason is that joining would require public acknowledgment of their nuclear arsenal. Recall Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller’s sly call for Israel to join the NPT? That could be seen as a shot across the bow. Negotiate a comprehensive peace and stable final-status agreement in good-faith, or we will maneuver you into a position where we can exercise graduated punitive measures, and be able to circumvent your Congressional operatives by appealing to public opinion with the reasonable claim that we are serving the American national interest by justly enforcing US law.
Of course, Pres. Obama could do it right now if he wanted. All he would have to do is cease pretending that Israel doesn’t have them. I have no doubt the CIA could produce a report solidly verifying Israeli possession. It probably already has. I bet that if he let the intelligence community know that he would cover their backs against retribution from unhappy members of Congress, he could probably get an incontrovertible NIE with a damning unclassified version for public release that carefully details all the ways previous American policy towards Israeli nuclear weapons seriously threaten US interests.
Would Schumer or Weiner agree to that?
I don’t know anything about Weiner. Schumer, on the other hand, is I think a fairly honest man who has been open about his views. I think it is fair to say that his entire life is bound up in support of Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization, all in the guise of providing for Israel’s security even when it does nothing of the sort. I expect that he may make tactical concessions in return for lip service, but will never make any compromise that threatens the long term viability of the colonial enterprise.
He will have to be isolated or defeated, and he is a very, very powerful and consummate politician with reliable support and a rock solid seat. Only extreme action like that detailed above will budge him. Fighting him will be like fighting health insurance executives. They won’t cooperate with someone whose goal they see as cutting their throat. Obviously, why would they? You can play the inclusion and compromise game until you are blue in the face, but for a bitter-ender like him eventually it WILL come down to fists, and you have to be willing to fight dirty, because he will.
Would J Street?
I don’t know how far they will go in the future, because I don’t really have a sense for what their ultimate objectives are, and these are definitely not the public positions they announced at their birth. Their stance on the TIFF suggests that they will stay with a moderate rate of change in public position. They have to move slowly enough not to lose what I guess is their target audience: moderate Jews who support Israel, but do not support the colonies and think that a new aproach is needed to ensure Israel’s security and viability.
Israel is a fundamental part of most of these folk’s personal identities. It is simply human nature that many people are unable to make substantive changes in such a sensitive aspect of our sentience, and most of the rest are only able to make gradual changes. It is much more difficult when people feel threatened, so J-Street has to be gentle with them.
They are still minor players relative to AIPAC. Tailoring their contribution to the discourse and modulation of the distribution of power to maximize the rate at which they can change hearts and minds, subject to the constraint that they must eventually create a base large enough to actually change formulation of policy in Congress and the White House, is a Herculean task. If J-Street pushes the middle too hard, too fast, they will lose too many of them and fail. It seems reasonable to me to expect them to err on the side of caution.
I am personally convinced that my job is to push as hard as I can as often as I can, taking all the risks that entails. Someone has to be outrageous, and truly speak truth to power, not whisper blandishments to those who act in apposition to America’s best interests.
If I had the guts & wherewithal to start a propaganda campaign, I’d mimic ADL and start letting US congresscritters know in no uncertain terms that support for Israel was anti-American, and that their election resources would dry up and their chances for success would dim if they did not refocus their attention on US interests, not Israel.
All Jewish people should be very afraid of such a campaign; that is a huge problem but ultimately it is not MY problem nor is it the problem of Americans; it is the problem of those, like Wm Kristol, NPod, Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz, Danny Ayalon, etc., who set these pro-Israel-at-the-expense of US agendae in motion in the first place.
“All Jewish people should be very afraid of such a campaign; that is a huge problem but ultimately it is not MY problem nor is it the problem of Americans;”
Apparently it hasn’t crossed your mind that some Jewish people are Americans.
If you had you’d have noticed the self-contradiction in that sentence.
I’m no fan of Israel, to say the least, and no fan of the individuals who defend its crimes, but could everyone make some sort of effort to avoid sounding like anti-semites? Unless of course you are one.
And yes, I know that the charge of “anti-semitism” has been used with extreme dishonesty to stifle all criticism of Israel, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about actual anti-semitism–it does exist, you know, and you can find some of it around the comments section of this blog.
And it is everyone’s problem if legitimate criticism of Israeli war crimes starts getting conflated with anti-semitism even by supposed defenders of Palestinian human rights–we already know the enemies of the Palestinians do this. It’s a problem in two different ways–it further misleads people into thinking that being critical of Israel means one is an anti-semite, and it might also increase anti-semitism.
I think that J-Street has about six lobbyists- not exactly an AIPAC legion.
Obama can’t do anything without destroying his party, the wonderful group of democrats (Where Joe Lieberman these days?) . The media would also cut his nuts off. They will find anything to exploit and drag him down Deep.
It’s gonna take more time to get the public and power players to whistle a different tune about Israel. I’d say Obama is probably being cautious and will know when to strike. He proving that he isn’t going to let this issue take the back seat.
@ Donald:
Yes, indeed it has crossed my mind that “some Jewish people are Americans.” If you want to continue with the antisemitism meme, I’ll even give you more fuel: “Some of my best friends are Jewish-Americans, or even Jewish not Americans.”
It is PRECISELY they who cause me worry: a mob that suddenly realizes that it’s been duped by, shall we say Likudniks – is that safe enough? — into acting in ways not in the best interest of the US, that have resulted in deep harm to the US, when that mob gets aroused, do you think it will make distinctions between the Likudniks and my Jewish American friends?
If I am called an antisemite from broaching the problem, as I have been in this immediate instance, then I am disempowered from doing anything to stop the situation; my ability to yell out, Danger! Stop! has been muted by those who wish to perpetrate the dangerous event and don’t want to be hindered by mosquitos like me who wish to prevent them from harming the US.
Therefore, the problem falls squarely in the lap of my non-Likudnik Jewish American friends. They must bear the burden of sanctioning the Likudniks who would act in ways harmful to America’s interests, and who would call me an antisemite for criticizing them for their anti-American actions.
Donald, I dont see a problem in Psychopathic god’s statement that you cite; I dont see the inherent anti-semitism for this reason: if, if, Israel were to be so stupid as to start a war with Iran that the US has already claimed it would be forced to support, and oil, naturally, will go to $300/barrel, the resulting human catastrophe would sicken the rest of the world – all support for the US g.o.n.e. – the likelihood of World War III would be a 99% certainty, but moreover, the financial pain to Americans unable to afford gas to go to work, or pay the high cost of food transportation, would flick open the veins of anti-semitism in this country the likes of which was never seen in Germany, circa 1936. Support for Israel in this country is a mile wide and an inch deep. Since it is Israel, and not Americans, not Poles, or Senegalese, who claim that Israel is a ”Jewish State“ encompassing all the Jews in the world, it will be Israelis&Jews who will suffer the opprobrium, unless American Jews distance themselves from this insanity. There is no way you can escape that. Israel has set up its own self-fulfilling prophecy; it has not done what Italy has done, which is remain a Catholic country and the seat of Catholic power but be a nation first and foremost. Ditto Great Britain and the Church of England.
The people who planned Israel were not the sharpest knives in the drawer, just the most ambitious and aggressive, and that continues today. They have zero knowledge of the turns of history and what created the leviathan power of the Catholic Church 1000 years ago that reigned supreme for centuries. If they did, they could have changed the world for real instead of produce the fakakta mess they have. I suggest you read this exciting preface to Tom Holland’s spectacular The Forge of Christendom that explains some of how the separation of church and state came about, and the great power in it:
http://www.tom-holland.org/fileadmin/bookExtracts/Millennium.pdf
The point is, psycho, that you should be precise in how you state these things. Your reply to me is logical. But there is good reason for people to be very careful about talking glibly about Jews when you mean ” jerks who support Israel’s war crimes”. (Besides, some of the worst of the latter are Christian Zionists, as we all know). There is a long long history of people conflating the crimes of some with the crimes of an entire ethnic group (not limited to antisemitism–it’s the story of racism in general) and it’s why a certain amount of sensitivity (or call it political correctness if you prefer) is a good thing.
Now as for criticizing the jerks who support Israel no matter what–criticize away. I agree with the vast majority around here on that subject.
make you a deal, Donald: I’ll be as careful and precise with the way Jews are referred to as IDF is careful how precisely they drop white phosphorus; or as Knesset is careful how they verbally terrorize Iranian by repeating, almost weekly for the past 10 years and more, threats to attack Iran militarily.
I certainly don’t want to offend the feelings of Jews who are not jerks.
How do you feel about Iranian and Palestinian children who are not properly nourished because of Israelis who ARE jerks?
Okay, psycho, I can see you’re one of those people that likes to score cheap rhetorical points that don’t mean anything. You sound like someone who would point to Hamas rocket fire if I said that it was unfair to punish all Palestinians for the actions of a few. Your “deal” is a false choice–one can perfectly well condemn Israeli war crimes and AIPAC and any specific individual you know who is a kneejerk supporter of them without wallowing in the gutter with the anti-semitic rhetoric, but I guess the gutter has its attractions for you.
Donald — I will continue to challenge the antisemitic charge until it is thoroughly diluted; it is too easily flung about.
As for “scoring cheap rhetorical points,” that is a main tactic of hasbara. And that is why I challenge every instance when you call, “antisemite;” it seems to me practitioners of hasbara (AIPAC, etc.) get a pass. You warned me to “be precise,” to curb the rhetoric, lest Jews be offended. Where is the same warning to AIPAC, to Knesset, and why is it alright for Israel to respond to Palestinian rocket provocations with disproportionate physical/military force, but it is not alright for an ordinary citizen to respond to Israeli rhetorical provocations with even equivalent, let alone disproportionate force? see this essay by a young Palestinian on this disjuncture: (can’t find the essay just now; Phil posted it 2 or 3 weeks ago).
I didn’t create the gutter, but I will not be cowed by an adversary who uses gutter tactics, then complains if the victims of his attacks fail to observe all the nicest rules of etiquette, and fails to fully acknowledge the sensitivities of the oppressor.
Call me all the names you wish, Donald; I’m not going to stop calling out the hypocrisy of Jewish voices that warn me to tread gently on their sensitivities: there is no aristocracy of suffering. Further, when an oppressor kills children in the present, that act erases any claim to pity for the oppressor’s past suffering. It is no longer the case that, “their backs are to the wall.”
psychopathic god, concerning this:
I’m not going to stop calling out the hypocrisy of Jewish voices that warn me to tread gently on their sensitivities:
You don’t need to, as long as you accept others to point out your own.
Psychopathic god, I understand your anger. It feels to you reverting to the accusation of antisemitism is a strategic advantage in dialog, and no one bothers when someone generalizes about you. But that must not be so. Stand up for an open discourse but beware of scapegoating.
I don’t think your quote above contains the crux of what Donald is trying to tell you. He went to great length to show you it isn’t only about Jewish sensibilities, but it’s is a general law.
I appreciate that Patrick Lang is sensitive to on the issue too: They [the Iranians] know we want to sell! Sell! Sell! Does that sound familar? Do you honestly believe Ahmadinejad’s vision of a paradise to come? Isn’t he manipulating just as he blames others for doing? He talks about peace and freedom and a good life for all for all while exploiting the clash. Pretty much Bush’s design if you ask me.
Am I to believe that his “Perfect Man, the last Divine Source on earth, Hazrat Mahdi” will need no money to live, will paradise with its flow of milk and honey take care of it? And who is to judge the evil versus the righteous till then? On what interpretation of the sacred texts? To look at what makes Patrick Lang angry: Aren’t there any economical winners in his Islamic Republic? How comes one of the clerics is Iran’s richest man? Seems his revolutionary guards are among the winners too. Why doesn’t he tell us about the losers, the unrighteous, traitors only? He has no self-interests? Do you you honestly believe that?
I agree with Donald, and yes we should all be really sensitive to generalizations. I often didn’t like US politics, but I never one second even considered that I had to dislike all Americans for that reason.
That doesn’t mean that during the last years the pro-Israel hawks I met on the web, their threats combined with utter arrogance, and a routine to call everyone an antisemite that challenged their perception while often using racist slurs against Arabs didn’t irritate me. Yes that felt like hypocrisy. If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t be here. But then its a human trait.
a) taboos lead to walls of silence. Instead of dialogs on the issue we are confronted with conventions, veils of silence. Apart from the philosemitic conventions only the right no one has to offer an established discourse on the topic, but than it may be shifting. (see Eli Clifton on : Dogs, Donkeys and Women, Oh My! Jim Lobe’s blog)
b) it may well be that since there is no widely established discourse on the topic, only an essentially philosemitic versus an antisemitic view, some may slip into the antisemitic perception simply since they find the first somehow not fitting reality anymore. But it shouldn’t stop there. Beware of scapegoating whole groups. Be they Arabs or Jews.
I changed something but didn’t finish it:
only the right no one has to offer an established discourse on the topic
only the right has an established …
before it was
no one but the right has
Maybe I should have used the extreme right. Admittedly I often use right for extreme right. I prefer conservative for the group I accept on that side. I have the biggest respect for some conservatives.
Interesting analysis. Correct? That remains to be seen…
“So: Will Obama come to the J Street conference next month?”
That would make serious waves. Please do report on this…
Sounds like a reasonable analsysis.
If it is true, then the key is to communicate to the key swing Congresspeople, that the majority of Jewish population favors the two-state solution with a viable and healthy Palestine.
Actual peace.
Thank you for that Richard Witty, but the pity of it all is that even the moderates in the Jewish population understand very well that “the two-state solution” will not produce an outcome of “actual peace;” it WILL forestall the possibility of Palestine forcing a ONE-state solution for enough time that Israel will be able to economically dominate and control Palestinian lands, commerce, ports, sovereignty.
P.G. – agreed.
But in the moderate Jewish world, the 1-state solution now has the same taboo status as another solution had not so long ago.
Oh, wait, wasn’t that the 2-state solution.
In the meantime, the Palestinians are robbed and humiliated. They are shot when they resist in a peaceful manner.
I am unable to understand where the Palestinians get an assurance that the two-state partition will be survivable. I won’t say equitable, because that is not possible in the two-state solution, which basically ratifies, again, the crimes of the Zionists.
Who should they trust? Israel? the US? the UN?
I wonder if the main virtue in the two state “solution” is the overwhelming number of reasons for the Palestinians to turn any offers down.
As the responses of so many commenters has proven to me, the perception of Jewish group identity is much, much stronger than the actuality of it, but any American Jew who would compromise ones groats-worth of what we have been blessed with here for the benefit of people like the Israelis is, well, meshugganah.
Weiss: “The Obama administration has cut a deal with centrist-liberal Jewish groups along these terms. We will forget Gaza ever happened. We will never say a word about Gaza. We will always state that the U.S. alliance with Israel is indivisible. We will work with other nations on Iran (but we won’t allow an attack on Iran). You must help us with your people and the settlements. We believe that freezing the colonization process is the only way to get a two-state solution.”
I agree the two state solution can be made to work (although socialists don’t like it because its out of alignment with their coerced “one world” vision). But I don’t trust the unsecured claim that the Obama admin won’t allow an attack on Iran, and I think it’s not right that everyone agrees “Gaza never happened.” I can guarantee the Palestinians won’t forget about Gaza.
And actually, remembering and itemizing all of Israel’s atrocities is the key to making the two-state solution work, because it will force the Jews to acknowledge and grant the Palestinians the true sovereignty they’ve earned in blood, just like it might be said the Jews earned their own sovereignty in blood.
(although socialists don’t like it because its out of alignment with their coerced “one world” vision).
Chris,
Are you saying that capitalists support the 2 state solution and socialists, 1 state? I do not see why the current 2-state dogma is any less forced than the onestater.
Talking about the big picture saves us from the nitty gritty. 1, 2, or n states is a distraction from the daily abuses that Israel inflicts on the Palestinians through the army, the Israeli judicial system and, when all else fails, the settlers.
@ Elliot: “Are you saying that capitalists support the 2 state solution and socialists
—
I’m saying, from the perspective of the American Left-Right paradigm, conservatives (not right-wing fanatics) are likely to be more sympathetic to the two state solution than liberalism/international socialism due to the latter’s ultimate goal and vision of the end of borders, ethnicity and religion.
We all know that this conflict has become a touchstone for larger fights, world views and ideologies. It was that way in the Cold War, and its become that way in ‘the war on terror.” It was really (mostly) the diaspora Jewish Zionists and their lobbying that brought that state of affairs about by focusing so much attention there (although yes, there were other interests at play, as Chomskyites are always so quick to point out). But in fact, this current proxy state of affairs has become part of the problem in finding a solution.
From my perspective, elements of the Left don’t want any outcome short of the dissolution of Israel, no matter what might become of the Palestinians or the Jews living in the Levant as a result on the road to this final outcome. Their ideology is trumping their reason. Stubborn American religous ideology is also sabotaging the outcome by insisting Israel can do no wrong and has done no wrong, and Right religiosity would probably like to see Israel expand indefinitely as a finger in the eye of Islam (along the lines of “Rah, rah, go Judeo-Christian team!”)
The best way to sabotage both fanatical poles and their insistence on an apocalyptic showdown (and let’s face it, the angry Left is just as apocalyptic as the angry Right in its general desire for a final blood reckoning, and has the violent history to prove it) is to (a) truncate Israel, and (b) provide the Palestinians a viable and sovereign state.
Chris – I think you’re ignoring both the history and the reality of the two state solution. It arose on the Left (even the extreme Left) at a time when conservatives would not even recognise the right of Palestinians to self-determination, let alone the PLO and its leadership. To the extent that the one state solution has gained some (very minimal) ground in recent years, it is mostly because Israeli settlement activity has achieved its goal of making partition virtually impossible. Other factors have been the transformation of South Africa, and the realisation that Palestinian Israelis also have a right to equal citizenship in the land of their birth. It is only in recent years that conservatives have hopped onto the two state wagon, still supported by virtually all the “pinkos” and “commies” I know. The one state idea is not about erasing borderss, ethnicities and religions, but about finding the fairest and hence the most viable solution in the long term.
I was talking about American conservatives (as distinguished from American right-wingers) as being more sympathetic to the two-state. But yes, I agree that in Israel, right-wing ethnocentric Jews bent on gobbling up the West Bank made a huge mistake if their ultimate goal was to preserve and expand Israel as a Jewish state. They are victims of their own greed, the fate of many right-wingers. And yes, I can see how the ethnocentric Jewish Left in Israel would be for the two-state solution instead of the one state. (I was referring to the general international Left as now seeing the one-state as the preferred solution in accordance with its own vision).
So in Israel, the Jewish Left wants the two-state solution…and the Right wants to preserve the Jewish character of Israel…and the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians just want to get the Jews off their backs. That’s why I say the two-state (with REAL Palestinian sovereignty) is the best solution, because everyone (in their own way) wins (except the crazed Jewish far-right, which wants to ethnically cleanse the West Bank and take it for itself).
No one has pushed harder for an end to borders than the Republicans who pass for conservatives in the US. But the point is that gentile Republicans have outsourced their views on the Mideast to the neocon think tanks, which are against one state or two states because they insist that the entire problem is Islamic extremism, not Israeli conduct. It’s never been clear to me what the right wingers get in exchange for this deal they’ve made with the neocons, except I guess not being demonized in the media as anti-Semites, the way Pat Buchanan has been.
is socialism a code word for East European Jewish? genuine question.
Ephraim Sneh’s secondary agenda (first = get Iran) is to restore true socialist principles to Israel. If I recall correctly, his father was forced to step down from some Israeli govt post because he refused to compromise his support for Russian socialism.
@ America First: “It’s never been clear to me what the right wingers get in exchange for this deal they’ve made with the neocons”
The right-wingers get the “national security” card out of the deal (in the “Judeo-Christian” clash of civilizations with Islam). Just like the “race card” is the Left’s ace in the hole, the “national security card” is the Right’s.
Chris – I did mean international left and conservatives. Lefties around the world are still extremely gung ho on two states. I hang out with lots 0f them, and most are pretty confused, if not downright shocked when I bring up one state. Two states is the dogma. It is only a very tiny minority that has recently begun to talk about one state – and not for the reasons you suggest. As for conservatives, it is only in the past 15 years or so (since Oslo) that the two-state idea has really gained any mainstream support. We take it for granted today, but not so long ago, it was considered pretty radical. Its precursor, “land for peace” was pretty amorphous, often ignoring the Palestinians entirely (speaking only of Arab states – specifically Jordan, Egypt and Syria), and in any case, I’m not sure how much support or interest the idea enjoyed among international conservatives.
Your qualification – “with REAL Palestinian sovereignty” – is very much to the point, and another reason why the two-state solution is a nonstarter. There is no way that Palestinians will get real sovereignty or any kind of equal status to Israel, and indeed none of the two-state plans even remotely on the table promise the Palestinians a fair shake. One state offers a different approach – full equality, with the possibility of exercising national, cultural and religious rights in ways that will not compromise that equality. Justice and human rights. No ulterior world- government-type motives. As a Jew, I believe that Jewish national and religious identity can only benefit from such an arrangement, and I know that many Palestinians feel the same way about their own national aspirations.
@ Shmuel,
Yes, but its my understanding that Israel proper is currently the equivalent of Jim Crow — even after 60 years. One State, bringing in a large, justifiably begrudged Palestinian population, will likely quickly descend into civil war. Israel also will have the fear of internal terror at that point, and if there are a few attacks, it will turn into a racial tinderbox. On top of that, there are the paranoid fears of Iran getting the bomb hanging over it all…
It seems to me the two parties are best separated into two states, perhaps with an attached “option” a few years down the line to unite, and in the mean time a way is found to protect Palestinian sovereignty and prevent militant exchanges — maybe UN or NATO troops enforcing a cooling period.
Chris – Israel proper is not nearly as bad as Jim Crow, and the OT are far worse than Jim Crow. Affording Palestinians within all of Palestine de jure civil rights, with a jointly written constitution and international assistance, should go a long way to diffusing much of the tension. Economic issues, compensation, refugees, and past rancour must of course all be addressed (South Africa offers both a positive and a negative model in these matters). The chances of civil war within Israel proper are of course much greater the longer discrimination continues – not forgetting the strong ties Palestinian Israelis have with Palestinians in the OT, whose situation is completely intollerable.
I am not familiar with any two-state plan that addresses the rights of Palestinian Israelis, who cannot be moved or repatriated against their will. The settlers within Palestinian territory pose another problem. It is highly unlikely that any significant number could be removed at this point, and talk of “territorial exchange” is detached from reality (contiguity, arability, water, etc.).
There is another aspect to the one state idea, beyond its value as a “peace plan”. It asserts unequivocally that discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity is unacceptable. If a Jewish state means discrimination against non-Jews – as Israel has amply demonstrated over the past 60 years (and before, in terms of the aspirations of the Zionist movement) – then there can be no Jewish state. A large and culturally/religiously autonomous Jewish community within a secular democratic state can satisfy all legitimate Jewish national needs (hint: domination and discrimination are not legitimate needs). Such civil freedom would also help alleviate the significant tensions within Jewish and Palestinian societies , by offering an alternative to religious and cultural coercion.
Well, here’s a pretty sour take on “the deal” headlined here today:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september242009/obama_palestine_as_9-24-09.php
Interesting that of the three options, the author seems to favor the blackmail.
I’ve harbored a nagging conspiracy theory that Bush actually knew what was going on when he implied, from Knesset, that Obama was Chamberlain. Because Obama WILL be Chamberlain if he allows Israel to roll over Hungary — I mean Gaza — and call it “peace in our time.”
My tin foil hat tells me Bush figured out how he was being played by Israelis/Cheney and tried to warn the world, and Obama, in code. Of course, the entire democratic party reacted in high dudgeon.
A huge tragedy is the way Black people are being exploited to do Israel’s bidding. Christian churches are central to Black empowerment, and Black Christians trace a parallel to Jewish suffering and “Exodus.” I used to hear more than a few Black (usually female) voices on C Span call-ins quoting the OT injunction that, “Nations that favor Israel will prosper; nations that do not favor Israel will suffer.”
Don’t hear that so much any more, and how’s it working out for US anyway?
I don’t think Obama’s being blackmailed (yet), but I suspect Bush was. His background suggested that he’d be, if not anti-Israel, far less obedient to Israel than Clinton. In his first year he also told Cheney to tell Wolfowitz to shut up about invading Iraq. Then something happened around the time of 9/11 to make him a slave to the neocons, and I don’t think it was his discovery that Sharon was a man of peace.
That old Commentary editor, speaking at Harvard a few weeks ago and shown on C-SPAN2, attributed most Christian Zionism to them literally believing the OT injunction that, “Nations that favor Israel will prosper; nations that do not favor Israel will suffer.” IOW, the insurance policy to get to heaven is rubber-stamping
Israel–he said only one branch of the Evanegelicals unified support for Israel was rooted in the end times-rapture vision, the Dispensationalists.
Maybe this is just a sign that I need to be taken away by the guys in the white coats, but I can’t help thinking of that Sibel Edmonds testimony about the AIPAC conspiracy blackmailing all those Congresspersons including Schakowsky, and how a lot of the activity was centered in Chicago and involved Chicago politicians, including non-Jewish ones …
Gee, I wonder if you guys could, you know, just as a favor to me, say just who or what it is you are talking about when you say “the Left”. Could you, you know, possibly name an orgaisation or two? Or maybe the individuals who are the leaders of “the left” and have espoused the positions and aims you so gaily associate them with.
Or else, I could get the idea that you are just talking out of your butt, like people who use the catch-all term “the Left” usually are.
If you mean “the Democrats”, just say so. But of course, that would enable someone to check the Dem’s positions against your dire screeds.
Anyway, exactly who is this “the Left” that you are all het up about? Is that what righties of the peculiar stripe that refuse to get all het up about the Muslims concentrate on as a boogyman?
no clue who “the left” is. same with “progressives.” I thought I was a liberal in the old, Jeffersonian/ Enlightenment tradition, but don’t know anyone who cogitates in terms and themes of what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Well, maybe Scalia.
Obama proves Ahmadinejad was right all along.
“because everyone (in their own way) wins”
Tell me why the Palestinians have to give up all the best stuff to the Israelis, before they even get the left-over scraps the Israelis throw them and call a state?
What are they being punished for? Or is it that precious “blood” the Zionists expended on their way in. The way I read it that “blood” was mostly from civilian Arab quarters of Jerusalem that the Zionists mortared.
The two-state solution may be the best that the Palestinians will be offered, but it is intrinsically not “fair”. It simply ratifies, again, the crimes of the Zionists.
I agree. The one consolation I take in Netanyahu’s rabid resistance to a two state solution is, all we need to do to fix this thing is make one state, let the refugees come home and give everyone a vote. Democracy really is the answer here.
I think that Palestinians should ask for the northern half Tel-Aviv [Jaffa]. It’s only fair if Israel is eying Jerusalem all for it’s own. I would also want to control the Mediterranean waters, if Israel gets to control the airspace.
Not only a “sour take“ on the deal, but an educated one. Look who wrote that article Citizen cites:
And here’s a take saying the US came to the UN not to praise the Goldstone report, but to bury it:
http://forward.com/articles/114867/
Might not this,
Netanyahu: No peace until Palestinians accept Israel as Jewish state
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116650.html
indicate that Obama already blew it?
“Nations that favor Israel will prosper; nations that do not favor Israel will suffer.”
Which was written into the Bible in the last 100 years. On purpose. This phrase never existed in the original. Why? The word ‘nation’ did not come into being until mid-last millennium. Further, the concept of a nation did not exist until mid-last millennium. Until then it was tribes, kingdoms, empires, fiefdoms, duchys, etc.
The Dispensationalists (and Christian Zionists) use a Bible originally corrupted by Cyrus Scofield in 1906. The Scofield Bible (copyright owned by the Oxford English Dictionary, curiously) was the first time that the mention of Israel as a nation state popped up in any Bible, and it came on the heels of the 1903 Zionist conference in England where it was finally decided to go after Palestine instead of Uganda as a nation state for Jews. Scofield, a Kansas con who re-invented himself as a San Antonio preacher following two years in jail for defrauding his mother-in-law, spent four years in Switzerland reworking the Bible under the employ of Samuel Untermyer of NYC.
I think the original OT translation did not speak of nations per se, but it did directly say that G-D said non-jews would be favored by G-D if they supported the G-D favored Jews.
If we are talking about Genesis 12:2-3, God tells Abraham to leave Haran and go to “the land that I will show you”, promises to make him into “a great nation” (the Hebrew word is “goy” – meaning nation, gens), and says “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and all the families (mishpahot) of the earth will be blessed in you.”
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