Among the countless recent commentaries on the prospects and implications of the Palestinian leadership's bid for membership at the United Nations, I find Rashid Khalidi's "The Palestinians' Next Move" exceptionally clear, concise, and convincing.
Among his "initial conclusions":
1. "the United States now is thoroughly out of touch with most of the international community when it comes to Palestine and Israel."
2. "after two decades of the U.S. behaving as 'Israel’s lawyer,' the two-state solution is now dead."
3. "the Palestinian leadership … has taken a long-overdue first step to re-internationalize Palestine’s struggle for liberty and self-determination and to take matters out of the hands of American diplomats who for decades have systematically advanced Israel’s interests at the expense of the Palestinians. The attempt to produce more objective stewardship of negotiations by taking the Palestinian case to the UN will clearly fail in the short term due to U.S. opposition. Nevertheless, it was relatively successful in galvanizing international support for the Palestinians almost everywhere outside of the fact-free bubble that is the DC beltway and much of the mainstream media."While recognizing "significant changes in perceptions of the conflict at the grassroots level in the United States," Khalidi is appropriately doubtful that U.S. government policy will change any time soon, given the power of the Israel lobby. Nor does he see any prospect of meaningful change in Israeli policies.
The best hope for the Palestinians, he concludes, lies in "a new long-term strategy for national liberation":
The focus of this new strategy will have to return from a two-decade hiatus at a rigged negotiating table to its original and most representative form: popular, grassroots, nonviolent struggle on the ground and among Palestinians in exile. The good news for the Palestinians is that the infrastructure for such a struggle is already in place after years of nonviolent protest in the villages of the West Bank and could grow with the recently minted model of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions to consider. A highly coordinated and truly massive campaign of active nonviolence could shock the conscience of the world and energize Palestinians everywhere. The bad news for the Israelis—who have brutally repressed nonviolent protest in villages such as Bilin, Nilin, Nebi Saleh, Walaja and many other places over the past six years—is that, according to Ministry of Defense political-military chief Amos Gilad, “we [the Israelis] don’t do Gandhi very well.”
Beyond the merits of Khalidi's analysis, it's remarkable that it appears in the pages, or at least on the website, of The National Interest, a publication that long served mainly as an outlet for neoconservative luminaries. (It was founded in 1985 by Irving Kristol.) Its editorial board split in 2005, according to Wikipedia, and since then the publication has been dominated by more traditional conservatives and foreign-policy "realists." According to its masthead page, Henry Kissinger is its "Honorary Chairman," while James Schlesinger chairs its Advisory Council. The think tank that publishes it, the Center for the National Interest, was founded by Richard Nixon and used to be called the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom; its current chairman is Maurice R. Greenberg, former head of the insurance giant AIG.
Obviously, there's no reason to suppose that many in that crew - aside from John Mearsheimer, who's also listed as a member of the Advisory Council - share Khalidi's perspective, but perhaps there's some hope to be found in the fact that they published the piece.
Or perhaps Robert W. Merry, who took over as editor just last week after a long run at the head of the Congressional Quarterly, is in for a short term in his new gig….
“A highly coordinated and truly massive campaign of active nonviolence could shock the conscience of the world and energize Palestinians everywhere. The bad news for the Israelis—who have brutally repressed nonviolent protest in villages such as Bilin, Nilin, Nebi Saleh, Walaja and many other places over the past six years—is that, according to Ministry of Defense political-military chief Amos Gilad, “we [the Israelis] don’t do Gandhi very well.”
I presume now that the hopes of a settlement through negotiations is being formally dropped left and right, that leaves the Palestinians between a rock and a hard place., as this quote suggests (I believe protests are the right thing to do, I love Khalidi’s use of the term ‘hiatus’ here, that’s exactly what negotiations are, a hiatus away from doing things that may actually bear some fruits). Yet I too can sense violence and bloodshed coming the Palestinian’s way on a large scale in the case of the next plan of action being massive protests, and even moreso if the settler self-defence law gets passed. I can see so, so much room for abuse by the Israelis here, it might even play into their hands as the hasbara central spin du jour becomes “they violently attacked us and came to protests armed, now we need even more protection than we did before!11″ to justify their various “security measures” (which involves much shooting and killing at sight, doubtlessly, as well as presenting a handy occasion to flip out yet more armaments, and erect yet more wire mesh fences, or install yet more checkpoints, and fragment the Palestinian territories yet further). More large scale physical confrontations mean a higher probability of violent clashes, after all it may be hard not to hit back, when an Israeli is about to beat your friend to a pulp with a nightstick. And we all know who the West is likelier to believe was the agitator, especially with that anti-Muslim / anti-Arab drip that’s been in the West’s veins for almost a decade now.
I ask myself, how many more dead at Israel’s hands? How many more lies will we have to hear in the coming years and decades? For how much longer will Israel continue to wrestle with guns from the position of its deathbed, kept alive only by Western life support and the favourable spin the west has graciously given the atrocities it commits?
You have to know your enemy’s weakness. The answer to every problem in Israel is more violence.
Israel has nuclear weapons and high velocity bullets and an army of conscripts fed on militaristic propaganda from age 4 but it doesn’t have any non violence management capabilities.
This is about the Euro but it’s also about Israel.
link to ft.com
Contagion would also be inevitable. Presumably, an effort would be made to build a firewall … But it would be tested to destruction
Israel has no credible firewall.
Mass civil disobedience is the fastest way to test Zionism down to its fundamentals.
link to youtube.com
seafoid, I haven’t read yours, but here’s mine. Also the Euro, but also…
“The truth about the euro project is that it was always based on a colossal act of make-believe, launched in defiance of all economic and political reality. And as history and storytelling have shown us again and again, when human beings, individually or collectively, attempt to act out a fantasy, there is a very clear and identifiable pattern to what follows.
The “fantasy cycle”, as I have called it elsewhere, unfolds through five stages. The tragedy begins with the Anticipation Stage, when nervous energy tempts the protagonist into some enticingly hubristic course of action. Now we enter a Dream Stage, when for a while, all seems to go well. But because the fantasy defies the reality of the world around it, things move into a Frustration Stage, where it all starts to go wrong. This prompts those in the obsessive grip of the make-believe to push their fantasy even further out of touch with reality, leading them to the Nightmare Stage, where, as reality crowds in on them, everything goes wrong. This leads to the fifth and final stage: Nemesis, or an “explosion into reality”, where the fantasy destroys itself.”
Christopher Booker
link to telegraph.co.uk
Well, if two states is dead, that leaves us with binationalism.
I watched a debate the other day about whether the US should end its “special” relationship with Israel. There were two people opposed (an American and an Israeli) and two people for (Rashid Khalidi and a South African Jew).
What was interesting was the South African claimed that if the US didn’t end its unconditional support for Israel, it would lead to the end of the “Zionist dream,” and that worried him. In other words, he was afraid that at this rate, we will end up with one state where Palestinians will be the majority.
This is the sad discourse. Someone arguing on the Palestinian side, not because they care about Palestinians, but because they are afraid of them, and want them to go away…over there….on their side. It’s completely racist if you think about it.
The biggest obstacle to binationalism is Israeli fear…
khaladi’s right
the palestinian people rise up en masse (peacefully), which ignites the entire arab/islamic world
which catches on everywhere else (yes, eventuallt even in the u. s. of a.)
with the liberation of palestine remaining the key issue, but with other issues (economic/political/environmental) brought into the mix, varying from place to place
and all this carried out in the spirit of those eighteen magical days in tahrir square
thereby changing the world?
count on it!~
Looks like the armed resistance option is the only savior of Palestine.
And I ain’t talking just ‘Hamas’ here – I be talking regional armed resistance.
War mongering again, are we Taxi?
When are you going to move to the region so you can resist Israel and also suffer the consequences? Or are you just going to urge people to war from afar?
LOL eee yeah sure I’m a warmonger and you’re a harp-playing vestal angel in a loincloth.
I’m actually in the south of Lebanon RIGHT NOW dude – you wanna wave north at me? LOL!
You and your Apartheid israel sure look super duper weak from this vantage point. Everyone here is laughing their arses at your hollow bravado – and YES they can’t wait to see your racist faces again at the next battlefield: tel aviv they reckon. Yeah it sure looks like people over here can hardly wait for the next ‘one’. They are excited to shoot down your evil carpet-bombing F16s in the near future cuz NOW THEY CAN! Remember what you were promised by Hizbollah in 2008: a hospital for a hospital, a school for a school, an airport for an airport etc. etc. etc. And ever since that promise was made, your Apartheid loving idf has been like a timid mouse when it comes to Lebanon – yet predictably, you being the most loathsome cowards on the planet, you guys go take it out on the Palestinian civilian population.
Sorry to say but from over here, you guys look like you’re finished, finito, en fin! Just a question of (small) time.
Heck this is just the writing on the walls in south Lebanon – make of it what you will eee.
wow, talk about a true champion of human rights and the Palestinian people.
Since when do you care about human rights for non-Jews?
DBG,
wow, talk about a true champion of racism and Apartheid for the peace-faking zionist ‘project’.
Heck this is just the writing on the walls in south Lebanon – make of it what you will eee.
I am sure the feeling was the same in Egypt and Syria late May of ’67. If there is another war in Southern Lebanon, i can guarantee the majority of your friends there probably won’t live through it. Is that what you want? more bloodshed?
Taxi,
During Cast Lead Hezbollah did not shot ONE rocket at Israel. Why is that? That would have been a great opportunity to do what you claim they can do. The fact is they let Israel do as it wants in Gaza and they did not lift a finger.
Hezbollah are in the process of losing their support base in Syria and the picture is that Israel is growing stronger. Your wishful thinking is blinding you. Tell the people in South Lebanon to start a war. Heck, tell them to shoot ONE rocket. What are they waiting for if they are so sure of victory?
DBG,
I too guarantee you that the majority of your israeli friends probably won’t be living, or even remain ‘living’ in Apartheid israel if a war with hizbollah breaks out. Heck you guys might even actually get invaded yourselves next time round.
Any analyst worth their salt would tell you the safest country in the mideast today is Lebanon. They already got their DEMOCRACY from way back in 1946, they successfully attacked the israeli navy in the 2006 and they can now in 2011 shoot israeli F16′s down. Baring in mind that we all know that there’s no way in hell the cowardly idf are gonna go into Lebanon as foot soliders to occupy it, well I’d say that just about check-mates the Apartheid rogue state of israel with regards to it’s norther border. So yes, Lebanon today IS the safest country in the middle east. We sure can’t say the same for the paranoid psychopathic israel.
And one last thing, Nasrallah promised to attack israel if israel ever launched a full scale Gaza-style operation on ANY part of occupied Palestine.
You and your israeli friends in a hurry to test his words?
It sure don’t look like it.
Just get the eff outta Arab land or else you’re gonna be forced out.
And you ain’t got long to be thinking ’bout it.
“you ain’t got long to be thinking bout it”
barely a year
Taxi is not war-mongering.
Every people under occupation and colonialism have a right to violent resistance.
It is a tactic. The only thing Palestinians should consider is the downsides to violent resistance because they have the moral right to exercise it. That is a non-issue.
A pro-settlement, racist like you eee has no right to point the finger at the Palestinian people. You are an apologist for Jewish colonialism and believe ‘might makes right’.
You have no moral standing. The only reason you are not yet banned for your hate is because you are a perfect example of the depravity of Zionism and Jewish nationalism.
Yes, calling for a REGIONAL war is not war mongering. Lying about being in South Lebanon in order to urge people there to war is not war mongering. Sure. You have lost your moral compass.
He DIDN’T call for a regional war you LIAR.
He first said that people under occupation have a RIGHT TO RESIST their ETHNIC CLEANSING and OPPRESSION.
I know this is simply an impractical concept for a nitwit nationalist like you to understand but us non-Jews have rights too. If a non-Jew is oppressed they have as much as a right to resist as a Jew would; to FIGHT BACK against their oppressor.
After Taxi made his post. YOU said this DISGUSTING comment:
So now, you’re threatening him with death and/or misery. The same death and misery your cult inflicted on the people of Southern Lebanon and Gaza.
I am an American, so I just don’t think like an Israeli does. I don’t judge people’s worth based on whether or not they are Jewish.
The only person here war-mongering is YOU. YOU are war-mongering and issuing threats.
They are excited to shoot down your evil carpet-bombing F16s in the near future cuz NOW THEY CAN! Remember what you were promised by Hizbollah in 2008: a hospital for a hospital, a school for a school, an airport for an airport etc. etc. etc.
that is war-mongering.
It’s not war-mongering.
The original comment Taxi made was w/ respect to armed resistance being, ” only savior of Palestine.”
I am assuming he said this in light of the US-Israeli attack on the Palestinian statehood initiative as well as the facts on the ground.
It was then, that eee interjected, calling armed resistance, “war mongering.”
Meaning, Palestinians do not have a right to fight their oppressors with violence. Yet, their oppressors have a right (it’s obvious that Zionists implicitly believe this) to use violence to subjugate them.
Hence, the subsequent comments about Lebanon are in line w/ Taxi’s original comment. You killed 1000 civilians in Lebanon in the 2006 war.
Why shouldn’t these people be ready to fight?
Don’t answer that by the way. I’m not actually wondering what you think.
No, warmongering is defending the Jewish state when they bomb schools and hospitals, DBG. Like you and your “interfaith group.”
for the zionist what most distinguishes friend from foe isn’t one’s religion, but whether or not one is an israel-firster
Chaos again you are mocking an organization where Muslims, Jews and Christians attempt dialogue in the community. are you for real?
Considering the sort of nasty things you say about Muslims here, it’s pretty hard to imagine that your telling us anything about yourself in that regard that isn’t fiction.
The notion that any group that involves you is welcoming to Muslims is laughable.
Israel doesn’t do Gandhi very well? I suppose that means the Israelis don’t respond well to non-violent protest. You can say that again.
But they DO DO BRITAIN very well. Recall Indians marching peaceably toward rows of British soldiers and, at an officer’s signal, being mowed down by rifle (or was it machine gun?) fire, and the rear ranks continuing to march forward, into death.
Israel does THAT Britain VERY well. However, Britain eventually got sick of the killing of peaceable protesters. I don’t see the Israeli government (nor do I see many of its people) getting tired of killing Palestinians whether peaceably protesting or even merely living their lives within Israeli-controlled territory (itself, perhaps, felt as a form of protest by many Israelis).
Yes, Israel does not do Ghandi very well, but neither do the Palestinians or anyone for that matter in the middle east. But Israel is not Britain in India. For every large “non violent” demonstration the Palestinians can muster, the Jews can muster a larger “non violent” demonstration. Neither population is much much larger than the other as in the case of Brits in India or whites in SA. All these “non violent” demonstrations will lead to only one thing, civil war.
How did the second intifada start? Ariel Sharon attempted to visit the temple mount. This was a non violent protest by him against the then Israeli government. He was defying Barak to deny him access. Palestinians rightly saw this as a provocation and responded with violence. My point is that even non-violent acts are provocations. Whether the response to the provocation is justified or not, it is clear it will happen. So basically, the path of “non violent” demonstrations will lead to a civil war.
We would be fine if Israel could at least do Fidel Castro very well, eee. Right now you’re doing things that would have made Pinochet blush a little.
the path of non-violent demonstrations will lead to civil war?
just as the civil rights demonstrations led to where?
& ariel sharon’s visit to the temple mount, portrayed here as a non-violent protest against the israeli government, was “rightly taken by the palestinians to be nothing but a provacation?
“He was defying Barak to deny him access”
and for this he took along a couple thousand idf soldados?
threw the match than ignited the second intifada?
so many lives lost
one being one too many -
death certificate?
cause of death?
general ariel sharon incited a war
and doesn’t “rightly taken by the palestinians to be nothing but a provacation” imply that the palestinians were also right to respond with a peaceful (initially, at least) uprising? and today, as it was back then, if violence breaks out, guess who will start it? getting the truth out? won’t it be up to us?
Ha ha, Ariel Sharon – The Butcher Of Beirut – is a non-violent activist according to eee.
“Yes, Israel does not do Ghandi very well, but neither do the Palestinians or anyone for that matter in the middle east. But Israel is not Britain in India.”
No, israel is not Britain in India. israel is an american jewish colony in the Arab world. And with brutal American supported dictators/regimes in most of the middle east why would anyone “do Ghandi very well”?
“but neither do the Palestinians”?
Are you thinking about the ones you pay to kill people like Arrigoni?
“Neither population is much much larger than the other as in the case of Brits in India or whites in SA.”
The Arab population in the middle east is much larger than the jewish.
What will be the fate of the american jewish colony when the entire arab world get rid of their US-supported dictators and maybe become the Democratic United States of the Middle East?
Non-violent acts are provocations?
Most of the world would not be provoked if you did the non-violent act of ending your violent occupation and went home. But i am not sure the people that live where you decide to “settle” after the occupation will welcome the master race.
This thing about The Mahatma, as I read it, India just replaced a set of foreign corporate managers with the locally grown variety. The stockholders didn’t suffer. If that’s Ghandi’s legacy, it’s not much of an accomplishment for Indians.
He was defying Barak to deny him access. Palestinians rightly saw this as a provocation and responded with violence.
You missed a step here eee. The first response to Sharon’s provocation was peaceful demonstrations by the Palestinians. The Israelis responded with live fire killing many peaceful demonstrators. After a few months of this the Palestinians came back with the suicide bombers.
This was a successful outcome for the Israelis. The loss of 1,300 of their own citizens were considered a good investment with all of the good publicity these martyrs provided.
I am sure Israel will do this again if Palestinian non-violent demonstrations become massive. No one can say if the Palestinians will be able to sustain non-violent tactics. Israel may yet again be able to violently suppress them and provoke them into a non-productive reaction.
It was even worse than that TovioS [my emphasis]:
On September 29, 2000, the day after Sharon’s visit, following Friday prayers, large riots broke out around the Old City of Jerusalem. After Palestinians on the Temple Mount threw rocks over the Western Wall at Jewish worshipers and tourists below, wounding the district police commander, Israeli police stormed the Temple Mount and fired rubber-coated steel bullets at the rioters, killing four Palestinian youths and wounding as many as 200. Another three Palestinians were killed in the Old City and on the Mount of Olives. By the end of the day, 7 Palestinians had been killed and 300 had been wounded. 70 Israeli policemen were also injured in the clashes.
In the days that followed, demonstrations erupted all over the West Bank and Gaza, as violence escalated. Israeli police responded with live fire and rubber-coated steel bullets. In the first five days, at least 47 Palestinians were killed, and 1,885 were wounded. On September 27, an Israeli soldier was killed and another lightly wounded in a bombing by Palestinian militants near the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim.[61] Two days later, Palestinian police officer Nail Suleiman opened fire on an Israel Border Police jeep during a joint patrol in the West Bank city of Qalqiliyah, killing Supt. Yosef Tabeja. During the first few days of riots, the IDF fired approximately 1.3 million bullets.
1.3 million bullets is quite a big step for eee to have missed isn’t it?
whoops, the last sentence is me not a quotation.
You mean throwing rocks from the temple mount on the people praying at the Western Wall below is peaceful? Right? That is why the temple mount was stormed.
And the reason rocks were being thrown is because Israelis severely constrict access to a Muslim holy site and are gradually evicting Muslims (and Christians) from the Holy City.
‘I find Rashid Khalidi’s “The Palestinians’ Next Move” exceptionally clear, concise, and convincing.
…
2. “after two decades of the U.S. behaving as ‘Israel’s lawyer,’ the two-state solution is now dead.”‘
But here
link to theatlantic.com
Hussein Ibish tells us that the one-state solution is impossible.
What options are left?
1. RoHa’s utterly brilliant three-state option.
2. Some sort of no-state option. (E.g., the whole territory becomes a Chinese Protectorate.)
3. Rivers of blood.
4. ?
The greater power lies with the Israeli Jews, and so far it looks as though they are going for options 3 or 4. Have they really thought this through?
Hussein Ibish doesn’t really strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer RoHa…
The crux of his argument is that Israelis don’t want a single state, so therefore it is impossible. This is pretty weak.
White South Africans didn’t want apartheid there to end either, but it did.
And, his book and this interview interview Goldberg was written nearly two years ago. That’s actually a long time when it comes to the rapidly shifting debate about I/P, the fact that Israel’s behaviour and US complicity with that behaviour is increasingly obvious, and the fast uptake of BDS throughout the world. Oh yeah, chuck in the Arab Spring for good measure…
I agree with Sumud on Ibish.
A long-term strategy has already begun, but there’ll be short-term responses to whatever the changing situation is.
gah, The Atlantic. They ARE the police! I have to lay down and weep when I see intelligent people bewitched, yes, that’s the word, by the literary starlets in the glossy press.
>Have they really thought this through?
No, clearly not, at least not in any realistic way. The option most popular among Israelis, I think, is none of the ones you list, but what they call “transfer” – somehow getting the remaining Palestinians to leave the West Bank (and maybe Gaza, too). Call that option #5. Problem is, it’s not going to happen with your #3.
doesn’t matter what the polls & pundits say
give voters a chance to vote for candidates who support justice for palestine, troops out now, demilitarization, jobs for all, single payer, social security and medicare
voters will respond favorably?
provided the word gets out