Three items:
1. A statement last night from Benjamin Netanyahu's office, affirming Israeli settlers' right to take over Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, including the takeover of a house in Hebron (thanks to Lia Tarachansky of Real News Network):
PM Netanyahu’s Remarks on Strengthening Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks this evening (Wednesday), 4.4.12:
“The principle that has guided me is to strengthen Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria [biblical names for West Bank]. Today, I instructed that the status of three communities – Bruchim, Sansana and Rechalim – be provided for. I also asked Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to see to it that the Ulpana hill in Beit El not be evacuated. This is the principle that has guided us. We are strengthening Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and we are strengthening the Jewish community in Hebron, the City of the Patriarchs. But there is one principle that we uphold. We do everything according to the law and we will continue to do so.”
2. Scott Roth tweeted the news today that those Hebron settlers at Beit El was evicted after all, under orders from Defense Minister Ehud Barak:
Again, why the Beinart [boycott the settlements] thesis is wrong. Settlements are directed and administered from *democratic* Israel.
3. At J Street last weekend, many people conceded that Netanyahu will be Prime Minister for a long time. Peter Beinart said:
I don’t believe that Netanyahu is a hopeless case. He can respond to pressure. He hasn’t had the kind of epiphany that Olmert had.
Olmert's epiphany was that Israel was on a path to self-destruction. Beinart said that Netanyahu would have this epiphany as a result of stronger American pressure.
P.S. In fairness, Beinart is on this too. Here's a tweet from yesterday, putting the onus for refractory Israeli behavior on Americans:
When will Am Jewish orgs discuss this? [Israeli] Finance Minister: Financial assistance to settlements grew during my term- http://bit.ly/HhTuuJ
Thanks to Paul Mutter.
Benjamin Netanyahu 28 years old:
link to youtube.com
This leopard aint changed his spots in three and a half decades. Why would he now?
No epiphanies for Israel’s leadership – only epic fail as this goes on.
A mild objection: I would leave leopards out of the comparison. You cannot teach old dog new tricks.
The other thing is that what Netanyahu says is correct, but requires some translation and explanation. In occupied territories the law is infinitely flexible, but this is IDF that determines the flexibility. Basically, settlements remain a military operation, and they can be militarily authorized or not regardless of what civilian laws are saying. The disputes within Knesset etc. about the status of settlements: evacuate or not are partly about the hierarchy within the Jewish state: who is on top?
The ruling orthodoxy is that the Jewish state, as embodied by IDF, is the highest authority. Civilian courts to some extend and rabinical opinions to a lesser extend provide an input too, but Security of the State trumps all.
The opposing view is that all Jews are created equal (at least, the true Jews faithful to the Almighty) and the state, very much in lower case, should not fetter them when they mold Jewish destiny and reclaim the Land (capitalized). The word of the Almighty trumps all.
Normally those two views are not in conflict because the goals of the State and the “true faithful Jews” are the same, but in some particulars there can be differences that have to be resolved.
Summary: “rule of Law” here means supremacy of IDF and Knesset, it it emphatically does not mean supremacy of the courts which can be cheerfully disregarded. Again, the civilian courts share the goals but may differ in particulars and the differences are resolved by the executive decision of IDF.
In that light, the complains of MKs aligned with the settlers make sense: since IDF can do everything, why can’t it side with the settlers. And the Statist orthodoxy says that IDF does not have to justify its decision, citizens have to trust that the commanders are wise and know what they are doing. Yes, they can, but they do not have to, and they demonstrate in each year.
RE: “In occupied territories the law is infinitely flexible, but this is IDF that determines the flexibility.” ~ piotr
FROM ALISTAIR CROOKE, London Review of Books, 03/03/11:
SOURCE – link to lrb.co.uk
ALSO SEE: Learned helplessness - link to en.wikipedia.org
Bibi’s epiphany will be at Masada.
Is Masada the Hebrew word for The Hague?
“Beinart said that Netanyahu would have this epiphany as a result of stronger American pressure.”
I don’t think so.
We talked about psychopaths on here before. One hallmark of a psychopath is they are so driven by the need to destroy others that they don’t even consider the potential for their own destruction in the process….they are blind to it, like a person possessed.
Maybe someone should tell Beinart that “Am Jewish orgs” enthusiastically fund settlements, usually with US Charitable status, and so tax free.
“Olmert’s epiphany was that Israel was on a path to self-destruction. Beinart said that Netanyahu would have this epiphany as a result of stronger American pressure.”
Beinart had an epiphany driven by his desire to see Israel survive and thrive. Hope folks stop pretending that he had a real compassionate epiphany because you can listen to him and know that is not the case. But whatever the case epiphany indeed. Been a long time coming. Netanyahu does not sound like he is on that path
Beinart’s worries (epiphany) not compassionate? Well, I’ve started to read his earlier book “The Crisis of Zionism” and from the little I’ve read, he is upset to see a liberal, humanistic Zionism (which early American Zionists imagined and propagandized about) turning/turned into the misshapen, misanthropic, fascistic, racist (to use an old term some people don’t like) monstrosity which we have been seeing blossom in recent years.
Was Beinart “late” in seeing this happen, and did that lateness come from a lack of concern for Palestinian Arabs? Sure, for the evidence of deliberate harm to Palestinians inside Israel and in the OPTs has been on very public display (read Israel Shahak) at least since 1980. But he is appealing — in this book — to the (supposed?)(verified?) liberal-social-justice attitudes (which were so much displayed in the civil rights movement in USA in 1960s) of Jews (like him, we are to understand, I guess) who are the absolute antithesis of the hard-boiled elderly Holocaust-drenched and mentally sclerotic $$-honchos of AIPAC.
But, whether Beinart is compassionate himself, now, is of far less moment than whether he is writing stuff that liberal social-justice civil-rights human-rights Jews (and others) can be (further) turned on by. His book(s) are not, I believe, sociology. He is not writing to report on the state of things. His aim is to be persuasive, and compassionate people especially will resonate to the erly pages of “The Crisis of Zionism”.
forthcoming
now an epiphany from pm netanyahu we’ll never see
except none is needed for palestine to be free
whereas ending our government’s unconditional support for israel
for sure is gonna force the pm’s hand
cause now he’ll have to return palestine to its indigenous people
or risk having to say so long & goodby forever
but then where will he go?
Didn’t Olmert’s “epiphany” precede his launching Operation Cast Lead?
Some epiphany.
I do not foresee a Netanyahu epiphany. I believe he lives from election to election and does not see more than six to ten months into the future. I don’t believe he is interested in signing a map specifying Israel’s borders on Israel’s east without first getting assurances on other issues from Jerusalem, refugees and security arrangements.
Such a complete agreement is way out of reach. The only possible agreement would be a border agreement and that would be a bit farfetched as well given the fact that Hamas is not interested presently at reaching any agreement because they feel that time is on their side given the democratic “Muslim Brotherhood” revolution in Egypt and Syria and other Arabic speaking locales (Farsi speaking locale too, anyone?) And Netanyahu could not tell the settlers, I have told the enemy that the land is theirs and we are occupiers until a full peace and we have gotten just a map of giveaways to show for it.