Iran furor masks the real story, Israel’s self-destruction — Tirman at Huffpo

At Huffington Post, there is a very good piece by John Tirman, exec. director of MIT’s School of Int’l Studies, on how Israel is bringing the one-state solution on itself. Notice the resonance Tirman grants to the one-state conference at Harvard a week or so back. (Peter Beinart was very upset by the one-state conference— Tirman is more descriptive, less emotional).

Three developments in the past week are emblematic of the coming disaster.

First is the fabricated fear of Iran’s nuclear program, one which poses no immediate threat to Israel — much less an “existential” threat — and very likely never will. Even if Iran at some future time managed to build a few nuclear weapons, Israel’s nuclear arsenal (reportedly 200 bombs at the ready) would serve as a deterrent, to say nothing of U.S. capability.

In this light, then, Netanyahu’s alarmist rhetoric about Iran, echoed by his legions in the United States, really serves another purpose — taking the Palestinian issue off the political agenda here and there for the foreseeable future. President Obama has not mentioned Palestine or the “peace process” for several months. As everyone admits, without U.S. pressure, the peace process — already moribund — is dead.

…A second, ongoing drama is the Arab uprising, with attention now focused on Syria. Israel last week offered humanitarian assistance to civilians brutalized by Assad’s regime. But Netanyahu wants a weakened Assad to remain in power, just as he wanted Mubarak to survive the rebellion in Egypt. A democratized Arab world will demand — is demanding — an end to the occupation of Palestine, and the issue itself radicalizes the Arab uprising to the benefit of the Salafis, the most “Islamist” factions that will support Hamas and possibly a new intifada.

…Instead of seeing the Arab transformation as a serious, even mortal challenge, Israel is digging in its heels and dismissing the small prospects for a peace agreement with the Palestinians — a move that would neuter many of the Arab radicals.

…The third recent and noteworthy event occurred not in the region but in Cambridge, Massachusetts — a student-organized conference at Harvard on a “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For many, such a solution — recognizing that a two-state agreement is improbable and that there is in effect one state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River — is a harbinger of the destruction of Israel. Demographically it likely is, since Arabs would outnumber Jews in that state in a few years. Were Palestinians to be given basic human rights, like voting, they would likely be in control.

Even the faint prospect of a one-state solution proffered in an academic conference was so upsetting that the Israel Lobby condemned Harvard for hosting the two-day meeting and leading panderer Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) demanded that Harvard cancel this exercise in free inquiry and speech.

One can easily see why Israelis are alarmed by one-state talk. But of course it is the logical outcome of what Israel is actually doing. It shows no sign of serious negotiations to create a Palestinian state. It builds settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank with practically no restraint. It isolates Gaza, strengthening the hand of the most extreme elements. It scoffs at the democratic impulses of the Arab transformation, and may soon be surrounded by Arab states not longer willing to accept the status quo. And it attempts — successfully so far — to distract everyone with inflated threat assessments regarding Iran.

When Palestinian statehood prospects are a shambles and a Greater Israel is a fact on the ground, the global community — minus Washington, of course — will insist that Palestinians be given citizenship in Israel. Thus a one-state solution is indeed unfolding before our eyes, a creation not of Cambridge academics or Arab militants, but the State of Israel itself.