The following was published as a comment under David Samel's post yesterday and we thought it merited its own post to keep the conversation moving:
The one point I take issue with is the inaccurate but very common dualistic description of outcomes as future events: a single state or two states. This seems to presume there is currently no state in place and won’t be until some decision between the two possible solutions is finally made. In fact, a single apartheid Jewish state solution has been in place for 44 years.
Israel conquered its Greater Israel in 1967 and almost immediately began moving its civilians onto the conquered lands into exclusive Jewish “settlements”, showing its clear intent to permanently include so-called Judea and Samaria into Greater Israel. It did so in direct contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits such population transfers as well as territorial annexations by an occupying power. It did so in full knowledge of the illegality of such steps as demonstrated by the famous Judge Meron secret legal memorandum.
So, please, if you want to discuss and debate the remote impossibility of converting the current single apartheid state of Greater Israel into two states, one Palestinian, have at it. I have come to see such arguments as little more useful than debates about how many Zionists can fit on the head of a pin. Why don’t we all just cut to the chase and apply Occam’s razor to trim as much non-reality as possible from our arguments. Here are my first proposed two Occam-like issue statement simplifications to be used to better frame our arguments:
1. Is it possible to modify the current single apartheid state of Greater Israel such that the former Palestinian possessors/owners could gain either a separate state of their own, or a modicum of basic and essential human rights that would allow them to share equally in the benefits of Greater Israel?
2. Are Jews entitled to an apartheid state of their own to protect them from perceived future dangers of anti-Semitism, or do past crimes against Jews provide sufficient justification alone for a Jewish apartheid state?
3. If Jews are entitled under international law to an apartheid state of their own for either or both of the above reasons, shall this be a generally applicable international legal precedent for oppressed peoples or is it exclusive only to peoples specifically chosen, such as Jews?
The clear reality is this: a single, apartheid state of Greater Israel has existed since 1967, now 44 years. 10 percent of Israeli Jews now inhabit 40 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and have asserted total oppressive control over the lives of the remaining Palestinians who live there. The numbers of illegal settlers and settlements grow rapidly with no end in sight. Ethnic cleansing and violence toward Palestinians, with the protection and enablement of the Israeli government and military continues and expands in parallel. Arguments need to be framed around that existing reality, not hypothetical future outcomes.
The only remaining question in my mind is what steps can the international community take to reduce the apartheid conditions the Palestinians live and have lived under so that they can have some basic civil rights and liberties within the existing single apartheid state of Greater Israel. It would be nice to see that happen this year as they have been waiting, mostly patiently, for some 44 years (some would say 64 years).
The threshold question in this debate was: Is Zionism compatible with justice for the Palestinians? The experience of 44 years of post-1967 Zionist policies and practices (not to mention the happenings of the prior 19 years) strongly suggest not. The revelations of the Palestine Papers, the failure of President Obama to have any positive effect on the recent negotiations, coupled with his feckless veto of the UN resolution on the illegality of settlements demonstrate how pontless, fruitless and corrupt that whole peace process aimed at achieving a two state solution and justice for the Palestinians really is.
The only remaining question for Israel’s Zionist leaders seems to be how they can best go about cleansing their beloved Judea and Samaria of the remainder of those offensive Arabs, or at least pushing them into the least desirable Bantustan-like sectors of the West Bank and out of sight and out of mind of the heroic Jewish settlers and prosperous Jewish settlements.
The question to me is not whether there should be a one or two state solution, but what should be done about the current apartheid state of Greater Israel that has existed since 1967. Instead of Mandate Palestine becoming an Arab state and a Jewish state, as intended by the United Nations, it became the Zionist apartheid Jewish state of Greater Israel in 1967. It remains that today and we should describe as such in our arguments.
The question is not what to do to prevent Israel from becoming an apartheid state, it is an apartheid state. The question is can Zionist apartheid ever be stopped. I am not optimistic.
One final caveat: when I refer to Zionism or Zionists, I am referring only to the hard core variety who believe in and are committed to a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, not to the moderate versions which I see as largely powerless and now think of as Zionism-lite. Those with moderate views who believe in some form of justice for the Palestinians and even in a two state solution are welcome to identify themselves as Zionists but please don’t accuse me of including you in the excesses of hard core Zionism.
To the extent my growing frustrations with this issue may have resulted in some rhetorical excess, I apologize, but the 44 year old apartheid state of Greater Israel is what it is. We need to quit beating around the bush.
Israel, pick one: 1) get off Palestinian land or 2) equal rights for all
I think your long post was elsewhere. I couldn’t find it in the David Samel responses.
I think your point that Israel is now an apartheid state (functionally including the West Bank), since 1967 (or at least instituitonalized since settlement construction started in earnest), is a clear one.
I think the effort to negotiate between kadima/labor and the PA was a sincere one. I don’t believe that the Palestine Papers accurately described the relationship as only a pandering and subordinate one, but disclosed mid-conversation discussions out of context.
In context, observing the serious and responsive movements in positions taken, the Palestine Papers demonstrate that the negotiations were sincere, and frankly close.
They are clearly not now. And, not being sincere makes the description of West Bank status not a work in progress, not in the process of figuring out, but intentionally ignored.
The current status is the worst of worlds for Palestinians. No free movement. No sovereignty. Even when the West Bank was functionally annexed in the mid-80′s, Palestinians had relatively free movement.
The question of single-state vs two-state is an important question, maybe THE important question, a politically dividing one.
And, I agree with Dr. Slater that the two-state approach is the only game in town.
And, the only way for that game to change for the better is electorally. BDS has the prospect of affecting Israeli electorate either way. If clear and clearly conditional on reasonable conditions and consistently non-violent, it can affect Israeli electorate to a shift left.
If BDS advocates EVER express sympathy for forced removal of Israelis, or sympathy for even the reasons for suicide bombing or other terror on civilians, or for a single state, then BDS will be understood as unconditional, and will not shift the Israeli electorate to the left an iota, however critical and reasonable and world-changing such a shift would be.
It is time for Israel to get ahead of the curve, far ahead. No more opportunism.
I like Gil’s direction here. It’s true; Israel is de-facto an apartheid state, when considered as Israel+the occupation. The situation will end when Israel shrinks to defined borders and Palestinians declare statehood, OR when the legal disenfranchisement of Palestinians ceases.
Most folks who support peace are in favor of EITHER outcome, conditional on broad agreement by some kind of majority.
Since only a minority of Palestinians and Israelis are in support of a one state solution, if feels premature to use that as a rallying cry for peace. But it is a perfectly acceptable future scenario if they want it in the end and can agree on the terms, as South Africans of all races did.
So is a 2ss.
Clench,
I would like to see everybody to steer clear of qualifiers like “apartheid-like” or “de-facto apartheid state”. Once Israel showed the intent to violate its duties as an occupying power and begin moving its civilians into conquered areas and annexing portions of the conquered areas, it no longer met the standard of being an occupying power and instead became an unlawful conquering power. Since it did not then and never has provided the Palestinians any semblance of even the most basic of civil rights within the territories it conquered, it in effect created an apartheid state from the get go. So, Israel (Greater Israel and even pre-1967 Israel) is a 44 year old apartheid state.
I am not interested in using this as a “rallying cry for peace”, I want it screamed from the rooftops so that everybody, Jew and non-Jew alike is faced with dealing with the stark reality that Israel is a 44 year old apartheid state which has no apparent intention of changing that status. I want mainstream Jews and non-Jews in this country thinking, “Gee, what Israel has done is really bad, really immoral; I really can’t support that anymore.” I want it to be a rallying cry for the rejection and condemnation of Israel as a Zionist apartheid state, and for the rejection and condemnation of anyone, Jew or non, who refuses to face up to this cold hard reality.
Occam’s razor says cut out all the bullshit and focus on the reality: Israel is a 44 year old apartheid state. Who cares about the failed peace “negotiations”. Did the Kuwaitis have to negotiate with Saddam Hussain to get him to give them their land back after his invasion? Focus only on the cold, hard, stark reality: Israel has been an apartheid state oppressing the Palestinian people for 44 years. When will this end?
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
What it is is barely a first question.
The more important question is what is it to be. And, that is the question of single state vs two state.
Failing to answer the second question, forming a goal, is to functionally ADVOCATE for the status quo.
When will this end? At least partially, when dissent gets clear about what its goal is.
Within Israel, there is a tension between the reasoning of human rights and security. In virtually all democracies, where security is genuinely threatened, civil law is compromised. Name one country that didn’t suspend civil rights to some extent when under attack (or even what opportunists could rationalize as under attack).
The ambiguity of dissent, of BDS in particular, gives Netanyahu cover. It presents itself to him as an argument that he doesn’t have to deal with, because of its obvious existential threat (one-state).
Likud says ‘we are ok with that tension. we can surf it for decades’, and expropriate 1 square mile a year.)
Other parties recognize that the only potential reconciliation of that tension is a peace treaty, proposal generated by negotiation, ratified by parliaments, and subsequently ratified by populace.
And, once that occurs, then militancy becomes a violation of each community’s will.
What is proposed? Not just what is observed, and not liking it. Who does?
Richard,
I disagree with you that focusing on the solution is all-important. I think focusing on the 44 year history of apartheid in Greater Israel (as well as in pre-1967 Isreael itself) is the key to a solution. Once everybody realizes, contrary to the Zionist narrative, that Israel is an apartheid state and has been so for 44 years, the support for Zionist Israel will evaporate.
When that happens, Israel will truly be a pariah state and the hard core Zionists will likely lose their influence to be replaced by an Israeli government that will see a two state solutions based on the 1967 borders as the great deal for Israel that it truly is. But, to get there, everybody must first realize that reality, that Israel has been an apartheid state for 44 years and has no intention of changing.
Right now, mainstream Jews and non-Jews are still in denial.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
I don’t think you have a chance with that argument, because equally the ‘whole world knows’ that Israel has for most of its history (and before a state) been the target of terror directed at civilians.
Israelis’ tension as to the balance between democracy and risk is always there. European states sympathy with that tension is always there. Reasonable peoples’ sympathy with that tension is always there.
There is no valid argument that Israel does not have the right to exist. The most that you will get is an incremental change in attitude from European and world powers, but with the risk of fomenting a genuine hatred. The risk of fomenting genuine hatred is that evil actions will come of it, and then when those evil actions are seen the political argument will be exactly where it started.
There is no such thing as a democratic ‘state’s intention’. The state’s intention is constructed by who is elected, and that changes.
If you take out the word “intending”, you may have a path.
The point about your argument was the observation, free of judgment.
Once you get to comments about a people’s nature or collective thinking, you are in the gambling zone (and the house wins, not you).
Again, failing to clearly articulate goal will put that argument on the “threat” side of personal and collective deliberation. And, “threat” is the argument that favors the national security logic.
Israel doesn’t exist per se. It was replaced by Erez Israel in 1967.
and Erez Israel is an apartheid state.
link to blogs.aljazeera.net
“Livni is recorded confirming what Palestinians have always accused Israeli governments of doing: creating facts on the ground to prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.”
When Mr Erekat asked Ms Livni: “Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?”. She replied: “No. In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you have to choose not to have the right of choice afterwards. These are the basic pillars.”
“Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible . . . the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
Phil most laymen do not understand that the 2004 Wall case was founded upon the proposition that Israel’s measures amounted to a regime of population transfer, illegal settlement, and apartheid that:
– See Annex II, “Summary legal position of the Palestine Liberation Organization” in “Report of the Secretary-General prepared pursuant to General Assembly resolution ES-10/13″
With the exception of a provision in the Genocide convention that permits the ICJ to assign state responsibility for that crime, it does not exercise jurisdiction over any criminal matters. The Statute of the Court only permits States to participate in proceedings. From the moment that the Court invited Palestine to take part, Israel enlisted allies in an attempted to portray the matter as a “contentious case”. Australia argued that it was a “dispute between two states” which according to the rules of the Court could not be settled without the consent of Israel. During oral arguments, Prof. James R. Crawford explained that it was really a multilateral dispute and that the Court had given advisory opinions in many cases without the consent of all the interested states. See “This is a dispute between two States: the principle of consent” on pdf file page 34 in CR 2004/1
The 64Mb Written Statement of Palestine elaborated on the charges by citing Article 49(6) of the Geneva Convention (pdf file pgs 215-216 & 462-463); Additional Protocol 1, Art. 85 (4)(a) & Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 8(2)(a)(iv), (b)(viii) – (pdf file pgs 170 & 261); and the definition and legal test employed by the Court regarding South Africa’s policy of apartheid in the Namibia case (Chapter 10 in its entirety – pdf file pgs 244-277) . Many states submitted written statements pointing out the history of ethnic cleansing, illegal settlement, and apartheid. They included Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Cuba, Guinea, and several others. For example, Lebanon observed
–See pdf file page 8 Written Statement of Lebanon
The dossier and fact finding reports of the Secretary General, and officials on mission for the UN, including Special Rapporteurs Zeigler and Dugard also mentioned constituent acts of apartheid. The Secretary-General described instances of malnutrition and the inability to harvest crops. Dugard described the pass system and various forms of collective punishment. Zeigler cited reliable published reports that the government of Israel was pursuing a policy of Bantustanization that consisted of the creation of separate reserved areas or enclaves for the Jewish settlers and Palestinians. Unless rebutted, the latter is prima facie evidence of the crime of apartheid. See the Human Rights Commission, Study Concerning
the Question of Apartheid from the Point of View of International Penal Law, E/CN.4/1075, 15 February 1972, pp. 51 – 52.
Israel is NOT a party to the Rome Statute, the Additional Protocol, or the Apartheid Convention. The latter is merely a “suppression” convention.
Israel is however a party to the Geneva Conventions of 1949; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ; and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”. The Court cited Israel’s violations of its obligations under those conventions and drew on the fact finding reports while reciting its own findings in paragraphs 132-134 of the advisory opinion. The Court stated that with the notable exception of Israeli citizens, Israel was systematically violating the basic human rights of the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories. The Court cited illegal interference by the government of Israel with the Palestinian’s national right to self-determination, land confiscations, house demolitions, the creation of walled enclaves, and restrictions on movement and access to supplies of water, food, education, health care, work, and an adequate standard of living. The Court also noted that Palestinians had been displaced in violation of Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention. If all of that sounds like the definition of the crime of apartheid contained in Article II of the Apartheid Convention, it was certainly no accident.
Several reports submitted to the ICC Office of the Prosecutor after Operation Cast Lead (and the Goldstone report) incorporate, by reference, all of those ICJ findings. The Goldstone report cites several more prima facie examples, e.g. 19 members of a popular movement, including 11 children, were killed while demonstrating against “the Apartheid Wall of Annexation” according to information cited in footnote 721 on page 296. Article II(f) of the Apartheid Convention says that “Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.” is one of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid.
The bottom line, frankly speaking, is that 14 of the best jurists in the world and the former prosecutor of the international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia have already finished most of the necessary preliminary work for Luis Moreno-Ocampo and the ICC Pretrial Chamber to prosecute Israeli officials for the crime of apartheid.
Gil,
Your passion resonates with me. I ‘feel’ as you do. I put ‘feel’ in quotes because I want to emphasize the emotion part, and not how people use the word ‘feel’ to mean ‘think.’
We differ on strategy.
It is a theme in US history studies of the 60s that perhaps the more radical anti-war activists made it harder to stop the war. Faced with the choice of supporting the war or supporting the long haired, flag burning radicals, many people decided to check out and abandon the field. This balancing act between radical passion pragmatic strategy isn’t a new one. For new, I think that productive actions for peace and Palestinian rights will sound more like Jeremy Ben-Ami than like you.
But if in the end it turns out that US Congressional funding for Israel comes to a halt because of tens of thousands of letters from irate citizens who mention Zionism, history and apartheid – I’ll happily admit to being wrong. Based on my knowledge of how successful SUSTAIN has been, I think this is not the case.
actually you have that wrong there is no valid argument that Israel has the right to exist. here is a valid argument for why Israel doesn’t have the right to exist.
if it is illegal to gain land through conquest than the legal sovriegnty of that land doesn’t change hands
if you don’t have legal sovreignty over territory than a state doesn’t have the right to exist on that land
Israel is all land gained through conquest therefore it doesn’t have the right to exist.
No. You are here to undermine a strategy that you fear may lead to a one state solution, the ultimate bogeyman in your view.
You have no insight and have no ideas as to how the Palestinians in Israel can regain full equality and rights within your mythical two-state model. And yet, despite that deficiency in your argument, you expect readers to believe that you know what you are doing, as though you have a clear idea that shows that you grasp the problem. You don’t.
* Your knowledge has proven to be false on numerous occasions.
* Your intentions remain questionable, especially when you continue to accuse others of excluding you while you insist on your beloved two-state solution.
And finally, your sentimental haikus do absolutely nothing to convince others of your personal attachment to this Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Most folks who support peace are in favor of EITHER outcome, conditional on broad agreement by some kind of majority.
just for the record i’d be in favor of either but then i’d be in favor of money growing in my flowerbed too.
gil,
Once Israel showed the intent to violate its duties as an occupying power and begin moving its civilians into conquered areas and annexing portions of the conquered areas, it no longer met the standard of being an occupying power and instead became an unlawful conquering power.
just thought i’d point out clench and i are engaging in an argument on the other thread. it appears he’s indicating hindering israel’s intransigence infringes on Hebrew speaking Jews …right to self determination.
or something
The state of Israel was created in party by UN mandate. It exists. Hence, Israeli Jews are exercising their right to SD.
laws are generally put in place to protect minorities, not used to take away their rights. not that i think a country has the ‘right’ to self determination.
” i’d be in favor of money growing in my flowerbed too.”
Me too. In fact, I, and the whole RoHa family, are in favour of money from any sources.
Not only do we want more money, we need more money.
And on Zionist principles, that means we have a right to more money, even if we have to take it from others.
So, annie, could you fill your handbag with cash and wander over this way, please? I promise I’ll mug you in the gentlest possible way. You’ll hardly feel the cosh at all.
So, annie, could you fill your handbag with cash and wander over this way, please? I promise I’ll mug you in the gentlest possible way. You’ll hardly feel the cosh at all.
no no i think it is my right to mug you, it fulfills my aspirations for self determination. i don’t have to go about it gently either because i am not as sweet as you in fact i am a tad on the sadistic side. if the majority of my community decide to plunder all the gardens of australia for silver coins i am afraid you’ll just have to suffer the consequences until i can get the majority to agree not too, otherwise it infringes on our international human rights.
Gil,
Many thanks for posting this comment.
I’m a personal fan of cutting right to the chase. I’m not a patient person, to begin with and especially not when it comes to injustice. I say, identify the issues, call them out for what they are, use words that don’t equivocate, and immediately move forward to solve them. To me, anything less is a waste of time and energy.
Yet, having long followed this interesting and courageous blog (including all of those who comment here), my sense is that, for many, if not most, this is much more of a process than an event. That’s a general reality that I work to accept.
Most often, the comments here are inspiring, thought-provoking, and informative. At other times, they devolve into little more than “family” bickering and one upsmanship. As an outsider, it’s very frustrating, although occasionally, amusing, to witness it.
As I try to grow in my patience, my hope remains that more commenters and “watchers” of this blog will grow in their impatience.
Pixel,
Thank you for your kind comments.
Patience, an interesting concept. Should a 3rd generation Palestinian teenager growing up in the squalor of a refugee camp in Lebanon be patient? He and his family have only been there for 64 years. Certainly they can wait patiently a year or two more?
F**k patience. I wait action. I am sick and tired of endless conversations about this bullshit. I want it solved this year.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
I want it solved this year.
me too!
This seems to presume there is currently no state in place and won’t be until some decision between the two possible solutions is finally made. In fact, a single apartheid Jewish state solution has been in place for 44 years.
this is what i think. if you take away the framing and the ‘thought’ attached to all those physical manifestations whats left over is a piece of land controlled by one government and all the people are governed by that one entity only differently. it’s only when one becomes indoctrinated in the intricacies of rationales and explanations (iow ‘educated’ or brainwashed) does anything else make ‘sense’. it’s already one state and it is infinitely easier to change people’s minds about it than physically shuffle them around against their will.
You got it Annie. It’s called the perfect narrative designed and run by the greatest PR operation in the world. You get folks concentrating on stuff like “negotiations”, direct, indirect, delayed, whatever, while you slowly consolidate. Nobody’s looking at the real situation because they’re all confused and focused on so-called solutions and all the BS delays and games played to muddle up the process. Lots of shuckin and jivin but behind it all there is a hard core bunch of Zionist tough guys that have been there from pre-Balfour days who knew where they were going, what to do and how to get there. Destination: Greater Israel. Next stop folks.
You bought into the paranoid interpretation.
There are opportunists, but they are opportunists like Hamas is opportunist. They have a mix of good and rational program and cynical desire for their approach to be one that controls, their people.
I don’t know if you are a newbie to this discussion (desiring to cut through to the reality) or have lived with the tensions of the arguments for a long time and seek some substantive change.
In family mediations that I’ve assisted in, ALWAYS one party successfully “cuts through the bullshit” and persuasively describes ‘what really happened’. Then, the other family members describe their truth, and that is also “cutting through the bullshit” and persuasively descriptive. And, in most mediations, inside each of the narratives are embellishments.
And, the WHOLE thing is the THE truth, not the individual stories.
The best that happens as result are paths, and NONE of the paths exactly the proposed solutions by either party.
Dick :”The best that happens as result are paths, and NONE of the paths exactly the proposed solutions by either party.”
++++ Trying really hard not to see what has been laid down to solve this situation eh ?. End occupation & settlements is not clearly part of that i guess….
RE: “The threshold question in this debate was: Is Zionism compatible with justice for the Palestinians?” – Maguire
ANSWER: Take a close look at the settler in this photo. Note the expression on his face. Look into his eyes. – link to mondoweiss.net
P.S. If you still have doubts, spend a little time reading Commentary, Elliott Abrams, Caroline Glick, Melanie Phillips, etc.
P.P.S. AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING FROM NETFLIX UNTIL 04/03/11: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Tagebuch des Dr. Mabuse), 1933, NR, 121 minutes
Seasoned criminal Doctor Mabuse (Rudolf Klein Rogge) has been locked in an asylum for the past 10 years, straddling the line between life and death. One of his last projects involves a mysterious manifesto that sets in place a crime-filled future. Discovering that the creepy article’s text seems to predict disturbing events, detective Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) tries to put together the pieces of this mind-bending case.
Director: Fritz Lang
Language: German [ENGLISH SUBTITLES]
Format: DVD and streaming (Streaming available until 4/3/11)
link to movies.netflix.com
German title of Fritz Lang’s movie is Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse , of which Criterion has done an excellent DVD set. (Lang did either three or four Dr. Mabuse movies, depending on whether you count the two-part Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1921-2) as one or two movies, the other two being Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) and <a href="link to de.wikipedia.org 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960).)
Lang later claimed that the ravings of Dr. Mabuse in the 1933 movie were meant to reflect Nazi sloganeering.
Bang on the money, Gil. This cuts through all of the daily crap that pours out of the debate. Many ‘liberals’ think that paying lip service to the two state solution gets them out of the reality that is apartheid, and gives them a pretty little fig leaf to hide their prejudice behind, whilst enjoying all of the privileges and exceptionalism built on poor Palestinians’ resources. Framing it this way removes that particular hiding place, and may make some of them confront the reality which is so conveniently shrouded in denial in Israel.
Gil, beautifully stated. The only “carp” I have is this: [1] if the int’l community [I/C] does nothing, the existing (and quite violent) violent-settler-corrupt apartheid system will continue as a continuing test of Palestinian “sumud”.
On the other hand, if the possibly soon upcoming UNGA declaration of a Palestinian State (1967 lines, as proposed by PLO in 1988) occurs and if it is matched by any energy to do more than just talk by the I/C, then there may come about BDS-like pressure by the I/C for the removal of settlers and perhaps also the demolishing of settlements and wall and lifting the siege on Gaza. The unpredictable Arab Spring may also have other positive effects.
All the previous para is merely to say that the settlements/settlers do not have to be regarded as permanent. Today’s “facts on the ground”, yes, but “permanent FotG”, not necessarily.
I think the peace and H/R camps must work for the latter outcome. After all, in the punchline to a well-known story, “the horse may speak.”
Pabel,
Thank you, but I don’t like the equivocation of saying “this could end soon”. I have 44 years of stark evidence (64 years if you count the experince of Israel’s Arab “citizens”) that it won’t end. I can see no evidence of a pathway of ending this, so why talk about it in those terms which imply it is about to end? It’s not.
What we are looking at is the Zionist apartheid state of Greater Isreal, which has been in place for 44 years and grows more oppressive to the Palestinians each day. It is what it is. No more qualifiers, no more pie in the sky optimism about a solution being just around the corner. It ain’t going to happen because hard core Zionist Greater Israel intends to keep it all as it has for 44 years.
Occam’s razor: no more bullshit.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmsoes.com
Thank you for an obvious but much needed article. It is obvious with the mess created by Israel’s colonial-Zionist enterprise that the cookie-cutter molds of two-state and one-state are too simplistic to fit onto the ground reality today. But functionally, even if against the intentions of its constructors, the facts on the grounds have moved the arrangement far closer to a one-state one rather than that of a two-state one. At this point, implementing both will result in the ire and furor from the Israeli Jews and Zionists. BDS offers a non-violent way out for the Zionist enterprise to save itself with some modicum of credibility, and perhaps even secure an ethnic exclusive Jewish state if used to implement the two-state solution as envisioned and proposed by moderate Zionists.
Something has to give way, however. The first step is for the “liberal” Zionists to admit the reality of Israeli apartheid as not a distant, but a historical and current feature, instead of prolonging old and outdated Hasbara narratives.
Sherb,
You say it is obvious. If it is obvious why does it take an Irish goy to finally point it out?
I am with Avi on this one. There is no such thing as a blameless liberal Zionisim or Zionism-lite. What liberal Zionists have done is provide cover for their hard core brethern who’ve done the dirty work for them while they pontificate on justice and fairness and debate how many Zionists can sit on the head of a pin.
Why does it take an Irish goy to point out the obvious; that Israel is and has been an apartheid state for 44 years? Do liberal Zionists have some genetic visual defect that I am unaware of that prevents them from seeing oppression and defining it as apartheid?
I could give a shit less about BDS and non-violent alternatives. All I want to see is everybody on the same page and line from the Irish Moses Occam’s Razor Hymnal singing in perfect harmony, “Israel is a Zionist apartheid state and has been for 44 years; When oh lord will it end?” When we can get everybody singing and believing that hymn, the apartheid will end real quick.
Is that so difficult?
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
“Is that so difficult?”
Maybe not in Ireland, but in the U.S. you’ll find it’s damned hard. The Lobby controls the government and the MSM here, and you will have to brave inevitable accusations of anti-Semitism – especially as you are not Jewish and will be seen as having no dog in the fight (in spite of your father’s contributions to Israel’s founding).
But if you have the stomach for it, welcome to the fight. You wrote a fine, truth-telling article. Keep it up.
Thomson,
Actually, I’m from the states and probably Irish only from my Dad’s side. I’d like to think that if we really push the apartheid label which is pretty hard to rebut, it’s going to be harder and harder for media types and politicians to toe the party line. Once you are seen as supporting apartheid it may be difficult to attack those that are opposing it. Probably wishful thinking. I hope not.
Thanks for the compliments.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
“Actually, I’m from the states ”
Then you are not really Irish at all.
(Still a good piece, though.)
I am diaspora Irish and we far outnumber the real Irish. More properly, I am Irish-American. The Irish Moses reference comes from my father who was referred to by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first president, as the Irish Moses because he flew thousands of displaced Jews from around the world to Israel in the founding days of that country. link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
“More properly, I am Irish-American”
In other words, an American pretending to be Irish because his ancestors were Irish.
Roha,
I’m not sure I get your drift. Exactly how did you derive the conclusion that I am “pretending to be Irish”? If you mean Irish nationality or citizenship, you are dead wrong. I never made such a claim. If I claim I am Irish because of pride in my Irish heritage, I confess to that.
Israel wasn’t apartheid pre 1967 ? what was it?
That state of emergency in the Galilee was about which group of people ?
Gil’s piece here really does clarify the basic question of what Israel has in fact become — a single state apartheid entity. This thesis carries with it the further postulate that the outcome was carefully guided by the leaders of Israel over the past 4 decades. That further leads to another conclusion that the entire political process (“Oslo”, “peace”, “two-state” whatever it was named) was one big swindle at least for the last two decades.
What has puzzled me is who was in on the swindle. Of course Perez, Netanyahu, Barak, and dozens and dozens of other high level Israel’s. I wonder about other players. Could the sainted Rabin have been part of it? Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk? Congressman Ackerman? AIPAC leadership? ADL and Foxman? I have raised the question before about some of the American players and have heard strong defenses that these people couldn’t knowingly engage in a fraud of this magnitude. That never ending question: actively evil or just useful idiots?
I am puzz
All of the above (with the possible exception of Rabin as PM).
In the U.S., those who don’t play the game of deceit are culled out from consideration for responsible positions in government. The sincere peace-makers, the Robert Malley’s and Daniel Levy’s and Flynt Everitt’s, are spotted and automatically excluded.
Think of Chas Freeman or Uri Avnery and you have your answer.
Gil cuts through the Gordian knot here. Does anyone really believe that the 500,000 Israeli Jewish settlers/colonists who are already in the West Bank are going to move back behind the green line? We can get a glimpse of this impossibility from our own Richard Witty, who says he favors a “2-state solution,” but then goes on to torture international law into justifying allowing a substantial portion of these “settlers” to stay right where they are. Richard even goes so far as to suggest that removing them would be “ethnic cleansing,” a truly Orwellian statement.
Would the Israeli military even obey orders to remove these people? Some of the “settlers” are fanatics, who murdered their own prime minister and slaughtered Palestinians who were praying at a mosque.
Ahmed Moor made this point last year; a genuine 2-state solution that would win the support of more than a handful of Palestinians is dead. It might be a useful exercise to try and pinpoint when it expired; I vote for sometime in the early ’90s, when Israel, in response to the historic 1988 PLO declaration that Palestinians would accept the pre-1967 borders, only redoubled its colonization of the West Bank. Others, more knowledgeable, may pick a different date.
I personally don’t think a 2SS was ever really a possibility. I think the whole thing was largely a scam from the beginning. Sharon and others knew there would be pressure from the outside to do a deal so the settlement enterprize was designed to create facts on the ground (his words as I recall) that would eventually make a 2SS impossible. Oslo and all the rest were done reluctantly to placate the US. It was basically a delaying game while the lobby increased its power in the US until we got to the point today where no 2SS is even possible and the US government is totally coopted by the lobby. Pretty neat job huh?
I think Gil drives right into the morass, as do you, rather than cutting through much.
The reason that I say that is that he ignores the present to the future.
His political analysis is materially flawed, in that he ignores or diminishes the tensions of history, and therefore his “cutting through” is only partially true. (I think it is true, but not the whole truth.)
Morally responsible individuals and communities have to consider proposals, options. There is some moral consideration that results from “observation” even.
It is a presumption on both your parts to assume what Palestinians or Israelis would ratify. The ONLY test of that is for a proposal to be presented and then actually ratified or rejected.
And, the reason that I describe the forced removal of 500,000 Jews as ethnic cleansing, in the present, is that it is a proposal to forcefully remove 500,000 only Jews from their homes, in the present. It may be the best option, but to describe it as nothing more than “law” is to be callous and anti-democratic to a power of three.
It is a horrible, constantly changing reality and going only one way, but it is a reality.
The FAILURE to invest in the two-state approach is to continue the status quo. You guys are smarter and more experienced than to not see that your arguments get likud elected.
Richard Witty (April 1; 7:54 a.m.) illustrates my point exactly. Most of his comment is incomprehensible, but he does admit that he considers that requiring the 500,000 Jewish “settlers” to return to “Israel” is “ethnic cleansing.” All of these “settlers” knew that moving into occupied territory is a violation of international law, but they went ahead anyway, and now they feel entitled to their theft.
Richard does recognize they “may” have to be removed, but he is indignant — (far more so than he was about the attack on the Mavi Marmara). If Richard, sitting distantly in Western Massachusetts, is this resistant to one indispensable step that might rescue a 2-state solution, what are real Israelis going to do? Just pack their belongings and leave?
Well, that clinches it. Gil Maguire passes the Richard Witty Bizzaro World test. Hook him up, Mondoweiss!
Exactly James. Let’s not forget that while Bibi announced he was going to expand settlements, Richard was whining about the showing of Miral at the UN. A movie that humanizes Palestinians for once is apparently much more of a concern to Richard Witty than the expansion of settlements with regards to his one-man crusade to save the 2SS.
We all see through his incoherent verbiage regardless of these theatrics. He’s bitter I think. That’s why he’s on this blog. It’s a good blog. He can’t get his kicks elsewhere.
Cliff,
I LOVED that Miral was shown in the US, and hope that it is successful. For a very long time here, during the period when Phil was whining about who propagandistic Exodus was, I proposed that HE write a screenplay for an alternative, to work to bring it to the public.
I opposed the official use of the general assembly hall, as a precedent, to present a movie with a strong editorial slant.
That James North does not understand my content, is more indicative of his unwillingness to read or to inquire respectfully was to what I mean, instead preferring to shoot first.
What phrase in my post don’t you understand, North? “tensions of history” – that is that there are two equally compelling narratives.
You think it is a distraction to insist on the question of “what do you propose?” rather than “what do you judge?” I thought you were an “activist”, the root word being act. An action occurs in the present, and if you have any moral concerns at all, to weigh the likely affects and means.
Too much for you? Means/ends questions too much for you?
Cliff is right; Richard’s commenting priorities are, to put it charitably, bizarre. He found it more important to attack the UN’s film screening policy than to speak out against the latest wave of “settlements,” which will make his cherished 2-state solution even less likely.
Here’s what I think happens:
* Richard has a conscience, and he is deeply troubled by the Mavi Marmara, the attack on Gaza, much more.
* He scrutinizes Mondoweiss closely, and when he sees a nit he thinks he can pick — like the screening of Miral — he pounces.
* He posts comment after comment after comment. When he is cornered, he skulks off, and finds a new nit to pick.
* But after watching him for years, here’s my suggested insight; Richard is not mainly trying to divert Mondoweiss from the truth. He is really trying to hide from that conscience of his.
* Finally, I believe quite of few of the “pro-Israel” commenters who visit this site also have uneasy consciences, although they are admittedly less obvious about it. Only 3e is a straightforward Jewish nationalist, who says simply ‘we are on top, and we are going to stay there.’ For that reason, most visitors do not get as exasperated by him.
Another inspiring opportunity to communicate with Mr. North.
I’d like to comment on Gil’s point on liberal Zionists, in summary that we are enablers, worse than powerless (a similar argument to Israel’s claims that they had no negotiating partner).
We tend to feel very frustrated. How come the Israeli establishment doesn’t see the wisdom of our proposals?
But, if relative progress is the definition of progress, then we have succeeded. The content of negotiations between 1993 and 2008 changed MATERIALLY. Both Israeli and Palestinian representatives had compromised on their original positions, distinguishing what was important needs from rhetorical demand, getting to a perspective of at least partially attempting to incorporate what would constitute each others’ health as a community.
THAT is a good basis of achieving a good neighbor to good neighbor relationship.
And, the bridge between the remaining questions appeared bridgable, especially with confident help from UN, EU and US.
Since Olmert and Abbas met, there was Cast Lead/Hamas shelling, and the subsequent election of a right wing Israeli government, and further division between Hamas and Fatah and the very very slow ramp up of BDS.
And, rather than succeed at a two-state goal that is quite good (not perfect to anyone), the left chose to GIVE UP, change horses, gamble.
There are three choices:
1. Status quo (likud is literally pleased with the status quo)
2. Single state
3. Two state
Dissent based on human rights is acceptance of the status quo, as galling as that seems to BDS advocates. No goal stated.
The single state is an enormous gamble, to get there, and when it gets there.
The two-state is a compromise to some demands, an affirmation of others.
The left is again confused as to what it wants, what it is willing to enable (Hamas in power?), what its moral limits are (what it is unwillng to do).
I’ve seen businesses that were $100,000 in investment away from reaching their critical mass of success to realize 100 times that in value. And, then give up. When what they needed was INVESTMENT to finish the bridge.
Richard,
Your responses are so unrealistic I don’t know where to start and I’m not sure why I am even bothering, but here goes:
You talk about ends and means yet ignore the reality that the possiblility of a valid, fair two state solution had disappeared by the late 1990s because of the irreversible effects of a settlement program specifically designed to insure the impossibility of such a solution. There is no longer a fair solution available to the Palestinians, a point made clear by Tipi Livni’s statements documented in the Palestine Papers.
RICHARD, THERE IS NO END AVAILABLE ANY LONGER. Your own discussion of means to your hypothetical 2SS end appears to exclude even the possibility of relocating (an ethnic cleansing, in your view) the 500,000 illegal settlers back to pre 1967 Israel. You are correct, it is not possible to relocate those folks absent international military action and/or an Israeli civil war. So, the effect of your means/ends proposals is the justification of Israel’s unlawful population transfers, annexations, not to mention the ghastly oppression and apartheid treatment of the Palestinians that is necessitated by those illegal steps.
Richard, I would describe your ends-means solution as apartheid-lite. The Palestinians must accept the settlements and 500,000 settlers, plus continuing expansion of same in return for a state of their own which will have none of the characteristics of a normal independent state and will consist only of blobs of land scattered randomly across the West Bank (excuse me, Judea and Samaria) separated by exclusively Jewish gated communities quaintly called settlements. That’s a solution, an end to you? Give me a break.
Richard, if you want to take the moral high road in this debate, and want to preserve your conscience, you first have to admit reality: Israel has created an apartheid state of Greater Israel from the Jordan to the Med. It has existed now for 44 some years and has no realistic chance of change absent some catastrophic event.
Let me repeat, ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE, HAS BEEN FOR 44 YEARS, AND HAS NEITHER THE INTENTION NOR CAPABILITY OF CHANGING THIS STATUS. Richard, Israel has achieved its end, Greater Israel, by using the most abhorrant means available. It is high time you recognize that reality and quit indulging yourself with vain attempts at Zionist-lite which is really no more than apartheid-lite.
The time for ends-means discussions is long past. The Zionist apartheid state of Greater Israel is a done deal. It’s all over but the shouting. All we can do now is describe the ghastly result accurately and honestly. I think the Palestinians would appreciate that honesty. It’s the least we can offer them, but it’s a start.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
“You talk about ends and means yet ignore the reality that the possiblility of a valid, fair two state solution had disappeared by the late 1990s because of the irreversible effects of a settlement program specifically designed to insure the impossibility of such a solution.”
As it remains a possibility, to declare it dead is your own self-talk.
The form of that could include ALL of pre-67 borders as part of Palestine, with those settlers that choose to remain in Palestine allowed to, as Palestinian citizens with no expectations of Israeli protection. (If they then want Israeli military protection, they can voluntarily return to Israel.)
Further, that in Palestine, for those settlers that chose to stay, there would be an obligation to compensate individual and collective Palestinians to perfect the title to the land.
Both Abbas and Fayyad indicated that such a proposal made sense to them.
I’m serious about your premature giving up. Businesses are my model of giving up or persevering. Some owners of not yet (or never) succeeding businesses are wiser to minimize their losses and move on.
Others are idiots for doing so.
In this case, I think the solidarity left is idiotic for recommending so currently. There is no way that Netanyahu will negotiate a fair deal as a peer.
AGAIN and again, you have to choose between options, especially if there are options implied in what is observed.
And there are only three:
1. Status quo apartheid as you describe (Netanyahu is ok with that. He also thinks that “something will break, changing the appearance of the game”.
2. Single state – A civil war away, nearly certainly ending in a state of near civil war.
3. Two-state – Just elections away. (But only if people work for it, and not a sure thing)
You’re “Israel has no intention” theme is a false one. In 1986, Israel had no intention. Israelis had thoroughly assumed that they had annexed the West Bank. It was apartheid then, though not even Palestinians spoke of it in those terms. Israelis assumed that Palestinians accepted the situation (ignorantly).
In 1987, the first intifada scared people. It was low level violent, with the constant threat of shifting to grosser violence. Liberal Israelis sought a change, went to talk with Fatah. When the PLO declared that they were renouncing terror (sort of) and were prepared to acknowledge the existence of Israel, Peace Now demonstrations in Tel Aviv peaked at a few hundred thousand (10% of the whole population of the country on the street in support of Palestinian rights, so long as they recognized Israeli rights).
The point of that is to describe the change in consciousness, that it is possible, that it is cynical fraud to declare everything already determined.
In 2000, the whole thing shifted. The failure of Barak/Arafat negotiations, culminating in the very intimate and murderous second intifada with violence led by Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs (with the utter betrayal of trust in Arafat because of Al Aqsa Martyrs association with Fatah).
Since 2000, negotiations have gone much further.
Even if you sought to accomplish a single state, it is necessary to articulate how, and actually pursue that humanely.
Proposal is necessary.
Witty why is removing only those illegally living there ethnic cleansing when only members of one group is there illegally?
by humanely I am to assume to mean not portecting the palestinians rights and saying that for thieves to give back what they stole is mean so we can’t do it.
Irish, it was much more than that. It was also a trap for the PLO. It enticed Arafat and the PLO to “return” to the occupied territories where they could all be sent scurrying around building “ministries” and an “authority” that had no power and had to “play nice” with the occupier to prove themselves “worthy” of a peace that kept shimmering in the horizon like a Middle Eastern desert mirage. Meanwhile, the Palestinian national movement was neutered and dismantled. Subsequently, the leadership inside was split in two and set against itself, paralyzing even the remnants. Stroke of dark genius.
The grander plan and the writing on the wall should have been clear in 1991, when Israel started implementing its policy of closure on the ground. In hindsight the intent is clear.
His model has one central flaw. On one hand he is absolutely sure that the one state solution will lead to civil war. On the other he suggests the settlements remaining in a future Palestine would lead to a peaceful cohabitation between the arguably most right wing group among Israelis and future Palestinians. Consider the history. I am not saying it wouldn’t be the best solution given the pro-Israel hawk mindset–the ethnic cleansing of Jews, the judenrein argument, and in almost every other part of the world– but isn’t it as most of what Richard many, many attempts to preach to us the left/right posse much more romantic than, as he suggests, realistic?
But do Palestinians ever matter in his mind? Isn’t his only concern how an Israeli-Israeli civil war can be prevented? Is his starting point how to get the Israeli right wing into the boat peacefully.
Cynicism alert / Dystopia versus Utopia: RW: convinces them they can after all buy up the land slowly, with the help of fund-raisers around the world, and unite again with Israel at a later point in the future. Postpone the necessity to get the Palestinians out, fight them with their own weapon: the female womb? Negotiate direct support from the international community as highly vulnerable minority group, based on the right to self-determination, take over the Israeli tax system in the now still occupied territories, after all these Palestinians can create their own structures, since that is the basic column of self-determination, as it runs it’s own schools, hospitals, administration, security networks? For the shared parts, like roads, public transport it pays a certain percentage, 10% to the State?
**************************************************************
Pretty much the same is true concerning his narrative how sincere and frankly close negotiations were. … Why weren’t they signed then?
Concerning Arafat, the Palestinian Sumaya Farhat-Naser once told an audience here in Cologne, had he signed the agreement, he would have been finished as the representative of the Palestinians the moment he returned. I am assuming the same is true of all other frankly close negotiations, no one but a pro-Israel hawk would ever describe as “frankly close”.
I believe Uri Avnery, there wasn’t ever any real intention on the Israeli side to reach an agreement. They didn’t need to have real intentions either.
The only thing I really have to add is that Gil Maquire should write more articles for Mondoweiss.
Thanks Chaos,
I would but my last several submissions to Mondoweiss were ignored. No rejection, just stoney silence. One was on Governor Huckabee’s trip to Israel, “Governor Huckabee’s Chosen People”;
link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
The other was “Walter Cronkite Changes Sides: The Transformation of Jeffrey Goldberg”:
link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
I thought both were decent pieces but then again an author always loves his own work.
I was very surprised and pleased this morning to see a mere comment of mine on the very crowded Jerry Slater article thread was turned by the Mondoweiss editors into my own separate posting. Tough job being a Mondoweiss editor. That one had a good eye.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
Well, maybe they’ll think twice about ignoring you from now on, considering there’s more honest discussion and discourse happening throughout this thread than certain other ones I might name.
Well, in their defense, some of my pieces are far too long and occasionally (like my Walter Cronkite piece) a bit of a stretch. They are also dealing with huge numbers of emails each day and loads of other submissions. So, in retrospect, my complaint isn’t very well founded and a bit on the sour grapes side.
Gil, your blog says “How to Save Israel in Spite of Herself: Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”
I don’t understand how all of Israel doesn’t push for it’s leaders to consult with you before making any decisions whatsoever. I mean, you have it all figured out and clearly know much better than all 7 million brainwashed Israelis living there what is best for them. Especially since you do all this for the love of Israel just like Phil Weiss and Richard Silverstein and JVP. I am sure that Israel would pay for the hotline direct to your house.
i second lli’s suggestion!
Thank you,, thank you. No, no, please, please, no more applause. I accept. But please, no calls between 11pm and 7am Pacific Time; I do need my rest. When you call, ask for Mr. Moses, or just Moses if you prefer. I don’t stand on ceremony.
LLI, a couple of factual clarifications:
1. There are 5.8 million brainwashed Jewish citizens of Israel and 1.2 million oppressed, second class Arab “citizens” of Israel who do not appear to have been successfully brainwashed.
2. The theme of my blog, saving Israel from itself, comes from the title of a book written by a famous US diplomat, George Ball, and his son. You should read it. You should also consider the possibility that people like myself, Phil Weiss, Richard Silverstein, the wonderful youngsters of JVP, and all the others, would genuinely like to see Israel survive as a nation that truly reflects Jewish values and the spirit of Tikkun Olam. That is why the work of Mondoweiss goes on. There are some profound moral issues that are involved in this debate. As a Jew (or as a non-Jew like me) you should at least occasionally reflect on those moral issues and evaluate whether your decisions and choices are consistent with your values.
3. The theme of my post, this long thread, is that Israel has already created a single state solution which is the Zionist apartheid Jewish State of Greater Israel which has been in existance now for 44 years and has demonstrated it is both unwilling and incapable of change. If you would like to dispute this allegation and provide evidence why Israel is not an apartheid state I will be happy to engage you in reasonable debate.
I suggest you start before all those phone calls from Israel’s leaders start rolling in. I won’t have time after that.
Thanks for joining in.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
“and 1.2 million oppressed, second class Arab “citizens” of Israel who do not appear to have been successfully brainwashed.”
But surely they must have been brainwashed because most of them prefer to stay in this “racist, apartheid state” than among their brethren in Gaza and WB.
“would genuinely like to see Israel survive as a nation that truly reflects Jewish values.”
What Jewish values would those be? Mass suicide? Spare me the nonsense that JVP and Silverstein are the moral lights of our people and the rest of us are clueless. Silverstein is a fraud, as are JVP.
I love it when non Jews preach to us about values. Our history shows just how those Christian values were towards Jews.
But surely they must have been brainwashed because most of them prefer to stay in this “racist, apartheid state” than among their brethren in Gaza and WB.
++++ Go to gaza and west bank to see yourself what are living conditions there. And then wonder why they choose higher living conditions in Israel.
I love it when non Jews preach to us about values.
++++ Covert to judaism must we ? But wait, we got some problems with that in Israel because there are some sides that doesnt see converted jews as “real jews”.
Our history shows just how those Christian values were towards Jews.
++++ And how those Romans treated us, oh my. Get tissues near by, this is gonna be sad story.
not to mention to leave is to say that what Israel has done was right and just
Gil,
You don’t seem to see any connection between cause and effect. You claim that the settlements have effectively negated the chance for a 2 state solution. Yet, there were no settlements prior to 1967, and the Arabs and Palestinians still wanted to destroy the Israelis. Hamas still wants to do that for all of Israel and their backer, Iran has said so outright.
Israel evacuated settlements in the Sinai for a cold peace with Egypt. Israel evacuated settlements in Gaza and got thousands of rockets at it’s civilians in return.
In the meantime, despite numerous cease-fires and peace agreements between Fatah and Hamas, including one they signed in their holy city of Mecca, they are still at each others throats. So, I guess that means that Israel should evacuate all settlements in the West Bank pronto, because there is sure to be a full peace following that.
You also conveniently forget to mention that the territories were occupied as a result of a war against us instigated by Egypt, Syria and Jordan with the full complicity of the Palestinians who hoped and believed that they would get all of Israel as a result. They lost and now they cry victimhood. Of course, what would we know compared to you enlightened non-Jews and those paragons of morality like Phil, Richard and JVP?
You don’t seem to see any connection between cause and effect. You claim that the settlements have effectively negated the chance for a 2 state solution.
++++ By all means, show us that information how it gonna work with settlements. We are all ears and eyes.
Yet, there were no settlements prior to 1967, and the Arabs and Palestinians still wanted to destroy the Israelis.
++++ When ? How ? Told by hasbara class hour ?
Hamas still wants to do that for all of Israel and their backer, Iran has said so outright.
++++ You have been in Siberia a long time lately. News for you, nope.
Israel evacuated settlements in the Sinai for a cold peace with Egypt.
++++ With force. Settlers resisted. Didnt know that ?
Israel evacuated settlements in Gaza and got thousands of rockets at it’s civilians in return.
++++ Gaza & west bank are one entity. ( but i told this in another topic i think ).
In the meantime, despite numerous cease-fires and peace agreements between Fatah and Hamas, including one they signed in their holy city of Mecca, they are still at each others throats.
++++ Not your problem. And i give news flash few days ago, from JP, that Israel goverment dont want to be in contact with united palestinian government which includes hamas.
So, I guess that means that Israel should evacuate all settlements in the West Bank pronto, because there is sure to be a full peace following that.
++++ Negotiated agreement.
You also conveniently forget to mention that the territories were occupied as a result of a war against us instigated by Egypt, Syria and Jordan with the full complicity of the Palestinians who hoped and believed that they would get all of Israel as a result.
++++ Yup,its long lived myth.
They lost and now they cry victimhood.
++++ Taking your role arent they ?
With regards to Israel’s settlements in the Sinai, Israel was only at the table because Jimmy Carter forced them to come and negotiate. And getting Israel to GIVE BACK LAND THEY STOLE has cost the United States billions.
You don’t deserve credit for it. It was my family’s hard-earned tax money that bought Israel doing the right thing, not any self-originating sense of moral duty.
Irishmoses – your links don’t work – the wp-admin causes word press to ask for a password because it thinks that an administrator is wanted.
Without trying to pass on blame – it is never good to respond with stony silence to people making submissions.
Edwin,
Here are the correct links for my last three submissions:
link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
link to savingisrael.wordpress.com
In fact, while I get your point, the Palestinian citizens of Israel lived under military rule until 1966 (if I remember the history right) – other than the right to vote, they basically had no more rights than Palestinians under occupation today. So I would claim that Israel was NOT an apartheid state for approximately 1 year out of its whole existence.
Agreed, but I am trying to make the point about ‘Greater Israel” as the apartheid state.
This thread is a little reminiscent of some of the media discussions aimed at warning hourly workers about the dangers of labor unions. After a long and bloody struggle, the citizens of the West Bank and Gaza have been legally recognized as an occupied, yet independent and sovereign state by the majority of other existing states. States, like corporations, are “legal entities” with rights and obligations that are determined by international law.
Since the first intifada, more than 111 other states and dozens of intergovernmental organizations have extended belligerent recognition (aka “premature recognition”) to Palestine indicating their acceptance of its statehood – despite strong objections from an adversary, the State of Israel.
Israel was created by its own acts of belligerency and secession in part of the territory of the Mandated State of Palestine. Israeli policies and practices on both sides of the international armistice line include many, if not all of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid. It would only be necessary to establish one of those as an element in a court proceeding to secure the conviction of one of the responsible state officials. Unfortunately, there is no international court today that can exercise compulsory jurisdiction over the territory of Palestine in the absence of a complaint from the “victim state” submitted in accordance with Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute.
The Apartheid Convention was the first international treaty that required the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. So, there was no such thing as an international criminal court with jurisdiction over the crime of apartheid in the days when the autonomous states of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei (a.k.a the “TBVC states”) were established. In the meantime, the international community of states fell back on the colonial era doctrines of the “constitutive theory” and virtually nullified the existence and statehood of the TBVC through a collective regime of non-recognition. Civil society pursued the adoption of stiffer sanctions through the BDS movement. Notwithstanding all of that, the TBVC states were legal entities that manifested the tangible evidence of sovereignty, i.e. jurisdiction. Even the UN’s specialized agencies (e.g. WIPO) are forced to deal with the lingering legal consequences of their existence and South Africa had to tidy-up the loose ends through the laws of state succession. See for example the “Intellectual Property Laws Rationalisation Act, 1996″
The greatest doctrinal concern from pursuing those courses of action today is the proposition advanced by advocates of the constitutive theory that an unrecognized community has no rights or duties under international law. Gaza obviously does not enjoy a freedom from the San Remo Manual’s rules of blockade that govern the conduct of states. So, why does Israel enjoy the freedom to abuse Gaza in ways that international law would prohibit if the target were a neighboring apartheid victim state?
It would be supremely ironic if Palestine’s supporters ignored the victory of the declarative doctrine of statehood embodied in the jus cogens norm of self-determination and assisted Israel in its efforts to derail the Palestinian pursuit of non-violent political and legal remedies created precisely for states that have been victimized by the apartheid policies of a stronger neighboring state.
I strongly disagree that there is no existing State of Palestine today. Neither the existence of apartheid nor the continued presence of South Africa in the territory of Namibia effected the juridical status of the victims. See Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970)
Even under the outdated 19th century laws and customs of war, it was considered a necessary evil to recognize belligerent communities and allow them to exercise the same rights as other states with respect to the laws of war and commerce. That helped them to secure the means of self-defense and put an end to conflicts much more quickly. We can’t ask the belligerent communities of Gaza or the West Bank to pursue a non-violent solution, while at one and the same time denying them the belligerent recognition needed to access the really effective non-violent remedies.
No one in the “enemy entity” of Gaza has the capability today to negotiate a one state solution with Fatah or Israel. They are living under a cold, calculated policy of isolation, siege, and blockade. The U.S. State Department has a web page which explains that blockades have historically resulted in belligerent recognition, because they are “a weapon of war between sovereign states.” Wikileaks recently revealed that Israeli government officials had advised US officials they would be “happy” if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a HOSTILE STATE (emphasis added). The Restatement (Third) of The Foreign Relations Law of the United States §201.(h) says “Determination of Statehood: Whether or not an entity satisfies the requirement for statehood is ordinarily determined by other states when they decide whether to treat that entity as a state.” Folks, Israel is giving Gaza the “full treatment”. The Knesset has adopted statutes designating Gaza an “enemy entity”. Israel routinely lodges formal complaints against Gaza in the UN. The IDF has imposed a years-long blockade on Gaza’s inhabitants. Any of those things should entitle Gaza to the rights of other states, including an invitation to membership in the UN, the ICJ, the ICC, and other non-violent remedies. That is also true of their beleaguered brethren in the West Bank.
Imagine that
Arabs prefer life in Israel, even sisters of Hamas Leaders
link to ynetnews.com
You can imagine my ( absence of ) shock. Go to live with palestinians in gaza & west bank and then come back to wonder that miracle. Watch those UNRWA food distribution lines !!
actualy what they are doing is living in Israel illegally annexed palestine. just because they are willing to live in that part to have less harm done to them doesn’t mean they don’t want to live in palestine they just want palestine to be palestine and not a fraction of it.
Hostage,
I see your legal point and appreciate the depth of your analysis and believe your arguments would prevail in a legal forum as to the theoretical existance of a Palestinian state which has now also been recognized as a theoretical state by lots of other countries.
My argument deals with neither theory nor legalisms. I am looking only at facts on the ground. Israel conquered all of Mandate Palestine (its Greater Israel) in 1967 and almost immediately began a population transfer and annexation program to insure it could keep it all. 44 years later that program has largely succeeded: Israel has its single state solution which irreversible by any reasonable measure. No offered compromise state would be acceptable to the Palestinians or anyone else and certainly wouldn’t meet the legal standards of the Palestinian state set forth by you.
This sorry state of affairs needs to be accurately described and engraved into the moral conscience of everyone involved, particularly mainstream Jews and non-Jews in my own country. That description is this: Israel has created through military conquest and oppressive control an apartheid state of Greater Israel that has been in existance for 44 years. Mandate Palestine, intended by an overwhelming majority of UN nations in 1947 to be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state instead became the Zionist apartheid Jewish state of Greater Israel in 1967 and continues in that form today.
Could that reality change? I doubt it and I grow sick at the half hearted attempts to pretend to change that reality through farcical “negotiations”. All I seek to accomplish is the stripping away of all the pretense so that everyone is aware that Israel is an apartheid state and has been for 44 years. Once that reality is clearly understood and accepted in the mainstream change may be possible.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
Phil Palestine has been recognized as a state in the same way Israel and every other state is recognized.
I think that a single state would be the best possible solution, but there are armed belligerents with a few battalions on both sides who are still soldiering on. I still don’t see why the case for Palestine is too much different from the case for Namibia. The latter was occupied long before 1919 and remained that way even after Palestine was partitioned in 1948. It was destined to become part of a Greater South Africa that had imposed a brutal apartheid regime on it. South Africa violated the same rights and UN obligations that Israel is violating on both sides of the Green line. The UN established a theoretical government of Namibia as a subsidiary organ of the organization in about the same way it has given Palestine free run of the place and a permanent committee on the exercise of its “inalienable rights”. Civil society pursued BDS in that case, and we still ended up with a two-state, South African-Namibian solution.
I’m not so fatalistic as to believe that the 500,000 illegal settlers have more weight in the equation than the 3.7 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories; the 1.4 million waiting in Syria and Lebanon; the 2.7 million living in Jordan; or the 300,000 living in Egypt. Israel can and probably will be ordered to withdraw its armed forces from the territories and the Palestinians can be allowed to establish majority rule there under UN protection. The Palestinians living in Israel have also asked for international assistance with their government. The pressure on Israel is going to keep mounting over the lack of equal rights under a constitution. I don’t know if we will end up with one polity or three. All I know is that Israel and its supporters no longer have enough clout to sustain the current situation.
Just to add my thanks for one of the most incisive arguments we have had, even given the generally high standards of Mondoweiss.
I posted this on the other thread but it’s even more appropriate here.
Azmi Bishara (2007): The One Clear Solution: Side with Racism or Be Against It
A workable and just solution in Palestine is predicated on one principle, tested in South Africa: side with racism or be against.
I’ve seen a number of folks asking for Palestinian views on these issues in other threads. Many such writings are readily available in English. I’ve done a cursory and totally unrepresentative search today and come up with the following selections to share. No doubt important voices are missing – if so, please add them.
Leila Farsakh
Independence, cantons, or bantustans: whither the Palestinian state?
Middle East Journal, Spring 2005
Time for a Binational State
March 2007, Le Monde
Ali Abunimeh, Ghassan Khatib
The One State or Two State Debate – Riz Khan Show, Al Jazeera, Dec 2009
Nimer Sultany
Natives Not Immigrants
Peace Palestine blogspot, May 2007
Asad Ghanem
The Binational state is a desired Palestinian project and demand
One State vs. Two State Debate – Al Majdal (Badil) – Winter 2005
Nasser Ibrahim
Problems with the Two State Solution and the Dream of One Democratic State
One State vs. Two State Debate – Al Majdal (Badil) – Winter 2005
Mohammed Barakeh
Between the One State and the Two State Solution
One State vs. Two State Debate – Al Majdal (Badil) – Winter 2005
Hani Al-Masri
The Two State Solution is Still an Option
The Cantons State and the Liquidation of the Refugee Issue
One State vs. Two State Debate – Al Majdal (Badil) – Winter 2005
Asad Ghanem
The Future Vision of the Palestinians in Israel – 2007
The Arabs are part of the society too – Haaretz 2007
‘Future Vision’ Documents produced by the Arabs in Israel
The Haifa Declaration – May 2007
A project of Mada al-Carmel, May 2007
The Democratic Constitution: A Proposal
A project of Adalah, 2007
The Future Vision of the Palestinians in Israel – original document -
A project of the National Committee for the Heads of Arab Local Authorities, 2007
Nadim Rouhana
A State for all its Citizens
Foreign Policy, 2010
Hussein Ibish
A Real Plan to Build Palestine
The Guardian, February 2011
Hussein Ibish debates Asad Ghanem on the one state agenda
University of Maryland – April 14, 2010
Karma Nabulsi
Diary
London Review of Books 2010
The Single Demand that Can Unite the Palestinian People
The Guardian, March 2011
Various authors
Readings on the Implications of the Jewish State for Palestinian citizens of Israel
Jadal Magazine, Mada al-Carmel, Issue 5, December 2009
Azmi Bishara
The One Clear Solution: Side with Racism or Be Against it
Al Ahram Weekly, 2007
Joseph Massad
How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of peace
Electronic Intifada, January 2010
Richard,
By way of response, here is an extensive excerpt from a comment I just made in the Jerry Slater related thread:
link to mondoweiss.net
My response to that revolves around the question whether the Israel/Palestine relationship is fundamentally an oppression or fundamentally a conflict.
The left describes it as an oppression, and sites sequence after sequence in which Palestinians got the short end of the stick, and many describe that even Israelis presence in the land (taking up space) is only as interloper.
Then, they mix in the proposal (yes, it is already inherent) that what should be is a single democratic state from river to sea, compelling the peoples to live together, more than as just neighboring states.
Living together.
In conflict. The reconciliation of conflict is by mediation. There are MUTUAL abusers in the dysfunctional relationship. Much needs to be seen and acknowledged. It is not only Israeli contributions.
I distinguish between your approach of “lets see it” (an appealing approach) and the militant approach of “lets act on it”.
If you can keep your comments on “lets see it”, then you have a possibility of accomplishing some change. If your “lets see it” shifts to an approach that denies the Israeli experience, then you’ve shifted your effort to a partisan one.
Have you seen the late 80′s film, “The Mission”? In that film, Portuguese and Spanish were fighting for control of the area in South America around Uruguay. They had come up with a non-aggression agreement in exchange for the rights of slave hunters to ply their “trade” freely dividing up territories by region. Robert De Niro plays a former slave hunter, who kills his brother and goes into deep depression, is counseled by the Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons), and is inspired to change his life and become a priest.
Jeremy Irons, Robert de Niro, Liam Neeson travel to the jungle mission to the Indians, and the Portuguese attack their mission. Liam Neeson and Robert de Niro take up arms to defend the Indians (partisan response), while Jeremy Irons serves mass (witness response).
I liken the question to the path of rain falling on continental divides. Partisan is the easier path, the natural path, in which rain that falls in the east ‘advocates’ for the Mississippi watershed, while rain that falls in the west ‘advocates’ for the Columbian watershed.
The path of witness is to not yet choose which river system. (It is within human possibility, if not water’s.)
The dilemma with the “witness”/”informing” approach is that the information is also used by partisans for less than mutually respectful partisan purposes, NOT for conflict mediation, NOT for informing.
There are more conflicts in play than just Israel/Palestine. One of the insights that you could derive from Chomsky, is the recognition that there are multiple imperial agendas at play.
I don’t know if you have experience with twelve-step process. It only comes into play with the recognition by “I”. “I acknowledge that I am powerless over …..”.
Even appealing to Americans to boycott, is NOT that. That is still in the realm of blaming, of relating to “them” as the problem, partisan.
There is a large overlap of the non-partisan “inform” and what I am proposing of “persuade”.
But, only if the intention of the mediation is to reconcile. If the intention is to “take back”, then it is only partisanship, potentially ruthless.
Re:the question whether the Israel/Palestine relationship is fundamentally an oppression or fundamentally a conflict.
If there is a curfew, and you can’t leave your house to get food or water; to seek emergency medical treatment; or to bury your dead; and there are also some Israeli soldiers dropping by from time to time to hold you at gunpoint point while they defecate on all of your possessions – at first blush I’d say you are being oppressed by some real troglodytes and that if there isn’t an armed conflict there damn sure ought to be one.
And, the suicide bombing of a bus station?
are you even listening? can you even hear yourself?
>> I liken the question to the path of rain falling on continental divides.
Is this the same rain of confusion that eventually feeds into the river of discord which contains the rocks of strife around which the canoes of negotiation must paddle vigorously in order to avoid being driven violently onto the jagged shores of futility? :p
The continental divide quote is to encourage the commitment to “witness” (taking NO side) vs to form a partisan approach (which side are you on).
Otherwise the action will be seen, the threat, NOT the information.
“are you even listening? can you even hear yourself?”
You think that it is fundamentally an oppression (requiring intervention to stop the offending party) rather than a conflict (requiring mediation and peacemaking).
Do you hear yourself?
you are a partisan Richard Witty
you characterize the removal of illegal settlers as ethnic cleansing while simultaneously being opportunistic about the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine (the Nakba)
you have no credibility
you simply spam
What we all hear from you Richard, is someone who denounces Palestinian terrorism as terror (you just did it here with a reference to the bus bombing) while never condemning Israeli war crimes as war crimes–indeed, you couldn’t conceal your glee that Goldstone is essentially urinating on his own report while you’ve never shown any interest in any of the evidence presented in that report.
I honestly don’t know how Palestinians could reach a peace agreement with people who think as you do. Part of reaching a peace agreement that would last (even a two state solution of the sort you’d favor) would involve some degree of trust. There can’t be trust if your side won’t admit that when it kills innocent Palestinians it has committed a crime. You constantly praise the PA in part because Fayyad and others denounce terror by their own side as wrong. On this issue you are right to praise them. It’s an important step. But you never do the same for your side. Instead there are excuses, claims of “self defense”, endless obfucsation . Your eager embrace (along with some of the other pseudoliberal Zionists at Mondoweiss) of Goldstone’s backflip is very revealing.
If it was just you it wouldn’t matter, but I think you represent quite a few people on the pro-Israeli side. It’s an attitude that has to change, unless of course you think it would be okay if Hamas never acknowledged any of its terror actions were wrong. If you are uncomfortable with a Palestinian leadership that feels that way, then you understand how a Palestinian would probably feel about you.
>> The continental divide quote is to encourage the commitment to “witness” (taking NO side) vs to form a partisan approach (which side are you on).
You evidently slipped and fell down the Zio-supremacist side of the divide given, among other things:
- your rationalization of – and, therefore, “investment” in – the past (and possibly future) ethnic cleansing of Palestinians; and
- your insistence on a supremacist “Jewish state”.
>> You think that it is fundamentally an oppression …
It’s pretty obvious, to anyone who is paying attention and NOT in denial. Some of the key signs are Israel’s:
- past and ON-GOING oppression of and aggression against Palestinians;
- theft and colonization of their lands; and
- destruction of their homes, lands, villages and livelihoods.
An intervention to stop the offending party is most definitely required before mediation and peacemaking can take place.
Richard,
One of the problems with curing apartheidolics is that they want to offer 15 reasons other than themselves as to why their life is screwed up. Helping an apartheidolic requires that they first take personal responsibility for their addiction. Until they can take that first step, no cure is possible and any attempt at helping them is futile. While I would like to help you Richard, until you can take personal responsibility for what has occurred, I can’t help you and I will no longer engage in futile dialogue with you.
Here is your Step One in the Apartheidolic’s Anonymous 12 Step Program: You must be able to honestly say: “My name is Israel and I am an apartheidolic and have been for 44 years”. Whenever I suggest you take responsibility for this critical first step your response is to provide an impressive but irrelevant variety of alternative explanations and excuses liberally garnished with lots of clever language that suggests that there is no Israeli apartheid and that the cruel world and/or your neighbors are really out to get you and are really the source of the problem.
Since you refuse to admit the truth and your responsibility for your apartheidism, there is no point in futher dialogue as you remain in total denial. Once you have admitted the truth of your apartheid addiction you then will need to take affirmative steps to change by eliminating apartheid from your life. Notice I say “you” will need to take affirmative steps, not your family, not your neighbors, not your abusive parents and siblings; YOU ALONE MUST TAKE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TO STOP YOUR APARTHEID BEHAVIOR.
While I would like to help you, until you can find the strength of character to admit the truth of your condition and take responsibility for ending it, I cannot help you and I will not engage in any more futile dialogue with you as it is no more than a smoke screen you employ to avoid admitting your addiction and taking responsibility for it.
While there is an element of tongue in cheek in the above, Richard you are refusing to admit the truth of the statement that Israel is an apartheid state and has been for 44 years. All the clever discussion you (and others like eee, LongLiveIsrael, el al) engage in is smokescreen intended to hide and take responsibility for the cold, hard reality that Israel is a perpetrator of apartheid and has the ability to cease that conduct whenever it so chooses. Nobody caused or is causing Israel to be an apartheid state. The settlement program and assoiated oppression of the Palestinians is Israel’s. Ending that program and withdrawing from the settlements is within Israel’s power alone. It doesn’t require negotiation, it just requires withdrawal. The settlement program could have been avoided in 1967 after Israel’s conquest of the West Bank, and the withdrawal could have occurred in any of the 44 years since.
Richard, I’ve tried to be fair and responsive to you in this thread. I’ve run out of patience. You and your compatriots are in denial about what Israel has become. Attempting to dialogue with some in denial is as futile as arguing religion or evolution with a religious fanatic. I will no longer do so.
Gil Maguire
http://www.irishmoses.com
Great article, great thread. Thanks, “Mr. Moses”. :-)
A few more Palestinian analyses about Oslo that are well worth reading even if they are quite dated:
Edward Said
The Morning After
London Review of Books, October 1993
The End of Oslo
Al Ahram English Weekly, October 2000
What Price Oslo?
Counterpunch, March 2002
The Edward Said Archive
Naseer Aruri
Oslo: Cover for Territorial Conquest
International Socialist Review, December 2000 – January 2001