We are all involved in a recovery movement from the illusions of Zionism, and the former foreign minister of Israel, Shlomo Ben Ami, undertakes that inventory publicly in Al Jazeera, in a piece called, “Israel: The vision and the fantasy.” Short version: ethnocentrism kept Israel from accepting the generous Arab Peace Initiative. Which Kerry thinks he can revive, 10 years out and tens of thousands of settlers on. Israel’s defiance began after the ’67 war, when its occupation made inevitable “a war of races.”
Ethnocentrism is bound to distort a people’s relations with the rest of the world, and Israel’s doctrine of power was drawn from the depths of Jewish experience, particularly the eternal, unforgiving hostility of a Gentile world. The role of the Holocaust as the constituent myth of the Zionist meta-narrative reinforced Israel’s tendency to face “the world”, an amorphous but imposing construct with which the Jews wage a dispute that cannot be resolved through the traditional tools of international relations…
A crucial moment in the history of Israel’s oscillation between diplomatic and military “activism” took place on the eve of the 1967 war. That crossroads exposed a deep cleavage between the young, self-confident Israeli-born generals, who were spiteful towards the older generation’s “submissive” attitude, and the diaspora-born politicians who, haunted by Holocaust memories and existentially fearful of international isolation, resisted making a break with the old politics of diplomatic Zionism….
In 1980, in a famous open letter entitled “The Homeland Is In Danger”, historian Jacob Talmon tried to share this simple lesson with Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Talmon criticised the belief of the Israeli right that one major “event” would radically and permanently change the situation in Israel’s favour, and he repudiated the “religious sanction” used to justify unrealistic policies in the Occupied Territories. He explained the Messianic illusions that were reborn with the Six-Day War as false compensation for the martyrdom of the Shoah. . . .
A small country such as Israel, lacking a serious demographic foundation or favourable geopolitical conditions, could never perpetuate its presence in occupied territories, Talmon argued. Hence, the danger to Israel lay in the Sisyphean effort to subjugate the Palestinians. “Blind is the leader who does not see that a war of races is what lies ahead,” he wrote….
The Arabs might never accept the moral justice of Zionism, but, as the Arab Peace Initiative indicates, they would consider accepting the political legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Not even Israel’s staunchest allies will risk an indefinite confrontation with the entire international community by supporting Israel’s territorial ambitions. Reasonable border modifications are one thing; legitimising a Jewish empire is quite another.
Indeed, international acquiescence to the situation created by Israel’s 1967 victory proved to be extremely short-lived. When a war of salvation and survival turned into a war of conquest, occupation and annexation, the international community recoiled and Israel went on the defensive. It has remained there ever since.
Notice that Ben Ami takes Israel’s problem back to a Jewish “myth” or “meta-narrative,” about the “eternal, unforgiving hostility of a Gentile world.” This reflects Chas Freeman’s statement about Israel’s existential crisis: “It would not be the first time in history that Jewish zealotry and suspicion of the bona fides of non-Jews resulted in the disappearance of a Jewish state in the Middle East.” It also reflects Jeffrey Goldberg’s description of his youth: “I believed a red river of anti-Semitism ran under the surface of America and I wanted to discover its source.”
“particularly the eternal, unforgiving hostility of a Gentile world. ”
This kind of racist self-delusion is the key. Really, if the gentile world had eternal, unforgiving hostility to Jews, the world’s Jews would have been wiped out long, long, long, long ago. The fact is that the Jews (like many other peoples in many places, everywhere in the world) have suffered oppression and prejudice and have been harmed and killed for racist reasons. There is no “eternal, unforgiving hostility” except in the minds of those who believes such thing exist in the “Gentile world.”
Ben-Ami’s written a beautiful masterpiece on the nature of the conflict.
However, I’m beginning to wonder how vulnerable the status-quo really is. Everyone knows that Kerry is doing little use in the area.
He urges the parties to get serious, warns the “window of the 2SS is closing in a few years”(just like Hague did before he came to the country a few days ago) but in substative terms, what has happened?
I think we may very well see a minimum-threshold policy from the Western world. The reality is that none of the countries in the post-Arab spring will be easy to ally with, like Egypt or Tunisia. To be truly close friends, the people have to like each other too. Americans aren’t going to warm to people who elected islamist governments, simple as, which Israel can exploit to good effect.
However, I don’t see the uncritical nature of the relationship continuing either. I think Obama’s awkard ’embrace’ of the country will be typical. People will just resign themselves, most likely. BDS will strengthen to be sure, but I think we may look at decades. People are simply not very politically active these days. People generally have it great – and they’re distracted by all the technology gadgets and social media and the like to really care like people did in the 70’s about foreign places.
Maybe I’m unduly harsh, and I know there is an active core of people who do indeed care, but I’m just having a skeptical moment. I think Israel’s image is going to be more and more tarnished but they can always point to the alternatives and say, well they’re worse and for most mainstream Americans, that will ring true. People will most likely want disengagement from the region more than anything else, we’re already seeing signs of this. “Let them handle their own problems”.
Shlom Ben Ami hallucinates when he writes Israel has a Jewish empire? Oh really?
Israel gave back the Sinai, unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza and pulled out of the Arab cities and villages in Judea and Samaria. Israel has shrunk considerably since the Six Day War. True empires expand into perpetuity.
One has to set the historical record straight. Israel has been prepared to share a very tiny country with its own Arab neighbors – who refuse to share it with the Jewish people.
That is why no solution to the conflict is in sight. Whatever Jacob Talmon’s misgivings in 1980 were, Israel has more than tried to rectify its sins. And now its time for the Jewish State to move on.
“reinforced Israel’s tendency to face “the world”, an amorphous but imposing construct with which the Jews wage a dispute that cannot be resolved through the traditional tools of international relations…”
And that was always bullshit. 5.5m bots can’t steer the world and never could.
Israel now faces an excruciating choice in Syria. Fight with Hezbollah against the rebels or fight with the Jihadis against Assad.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/may/28/eu-lifts-arms-embargo-on-syrian-rebels-live-updates
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/between-hezbollah-fighters-and-russian-missiles-israel-s-stakes-in-syria-war-grow-ever-higher.premium-1.526471#
“Good or bad, all of these developments are overshadowed, of course, by the Russian announcement that it plans to go ahead and arm Assad with advanced S-300 surface to air missiles, described by the International Assessment and Strategy Center as “one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all altitude area defense SAM (Surface to Air Missile) systems in service.”
Moscow’s decision, if final, is a diplomatic setback for Israel, which has tried to dissuade Russia from going ahead with the deal, most recently in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with Vladimir Putin two weeks ago. More importantly, however, the deployment of the S-300s could change the military balance of air power on Israel’s northern front, with the new missiles threatening Israel’s freedom of action not only over Syria but over Lebanon and Israel’s northern areas as well. “
Many people, and I am often one, forget that in 1967 the Palestinian quest was not limited to recovery of the recently occupied territories. Sometimes (quaintly, considering what happened next), Palestinians were accused of adopting “salami tactics” whereby they’d erase Israel a slice at a time, very much i8ncluding pre-1967 Israel. (Now, of course, it is Israel that has sliced the salami of the West Bank).
I mention this to explain or excuse a reluctance by Israelis to believe that Palestinians could ever be satisfied with merely (as both Israelis and Palestinians would have seen it) “recovery” of the WB&G. And on this basis, the 1988 peace offer by the PLO was spurned. Today, Israel’s military pre-eminence has made these fears obsolete but has also made Israel reluctant to give anything at all up for mere peace.
The continuing refusal by Israel to make peace makes the Palestinian enmity rather permanent, thereby justifying (to Israelis who seek justification) continuing fear and continuing refusal to make peace.
I should imagine that the Israeli public is woven of these four strands: [1] people always existentially fearful; [2] people who can be made existentially fearful by scare propaganda — which is always being abundantly produced; [3] people not fearful at all but happy to participate in land-grabbing; and [4] people (these would seem to be the only ones in these four strands as matters stand) willing to make peace and/or restitution with/to the Palestinians.