U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani speak to the media following a meeting with members of the Arab League. (Photo: Reuters)
This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Is it me or does the land-swap business in the Middle East strike you as political corruption in the international market place?
The Arab League presented its amended “Land Swaps for Israeli-Palestinian Peace” plan yesterday.
Who did they present it to? Vice-President Joe Biden.
Where did they present it? Washington D.C.
Who heralded their plan as a “big step” toward peace in the Middle East? Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Israeli link to Washington isn’t the only Middle East connection used to maintain power. Arab bonding with Washington is as important to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as it is to Israel.
Washington, Israel and the Arab world. Triangulation. To maintain the system everyone needs to know where the other one is.
Land-swaps allow Israel to keep its large settlements in the West Bank in exchange for some Israeli controlled desert areas or, at least, Jewish deserted areas.
At most, land-swaps mean Palestinian autonomy within an expanded Israel.
In presenting the plan, Qatar’s foreign minister emphasized that peace between Israelis and Palestinians was a “strategic choice” for the Arab states. Yes – for the Arab states. Like Israel, they depend on the economic and military protection of the United States.
Such a willing dependence has little or nothing to do with Palestinians. Land-swaps are not a strategic choice for Palestinians, assuming that Palestinians want a real state and a future to boot.
The land-swap mentality has crept into Jewish discourse. Progressive Jews are in the forefront of this innocent sounding terminology. It’s symbolic of their multi-colored kippah paternalism.
Like selling vacation property in Florida when I was a child – that turned out to be swampland. Or in New York City offering to sell unsuspecting immigrants the Brooklyn Bridge.
Swapping land in Israel/Palestine, where Israeli settlements stay in place and Palestinians receive land Israel doesn’t want, is a scam.
So why have a ceremonial presentation in Washington heralding the plan that has nowhere to go?
Perhaps it’s a reaffirmation of President Obama’s self-declared lame duck status in the Middle East. Or another brick in his library-in-waiting.
Thank you, Marc Ellis, for dissenting from the liberal consensus about land swaps. I think that there is an even more fundamental problem. The land swaps must be “mutually agreeable,” which superficially sounds perfectly reasonable, but in practice, is not. The status quo, while not perfect for Israelis, is certainly quite livable, as they have all the power. It is intolerable for the Palestinians, who have had to endure 46 years of foreign military control over their lives that has ranged from humiliating to cruel, sadistic and murderous. When it comes time to negotiate over the land swaps, Israelis have little incentive to be agreeable – their alternative of the status quo is just fine. But Palestinians will be desperate to come to an agreement, and will be in a much worse bargaining position. This will not be negotiation among equals. It is a recipe for failure or at best, an exceedingly unfair “mutual” agreement.
Since Israel has illegally acquired control of the whole area, and illegally moved its citizens into the territories, it should be given an “incentive” to minimize the extent of its thievery. Rather than a 1-1 land swap of territory, there should be a 2 to 1 ratio. For every acre of WB territory it wants to incorporate into Israel, it should have to forfeit two acres to a Palestinian State. That would help considerably, if this swap plan is at all feasible, although it still would not solve the problem of swapping arable land for twice as much desert.
But I don’t think any swap is in the cards or should be. The situation is too far gone for resolution by partition. And of course any two-state solution would not solve the problem that Palestinian citizens of Israeli can never be equal citizens in the Jewish State.
Finally, even this extremely dubious 1-1 mutually agreeable land swap idea is flatly rejected by the Israeli government, which insists that the 1949-67 lines NOT be the starting point for negotiations. They won’t even consider, much less sign on to this fig leaf proposal.
It’s a scam all right. Who do they think they are kidding? Oh, just the American masses. And they are correct. Just keep paying Israel’s bills in $ and blood, Dick & Jane. Yet, Israel is still not satisfied. The Arab countries going along with “small land swaps” that authorize Israel to keep all the major illegal settlements they want, is just an amazing sell out by the Arab state regimes dependent on USA. Obama should tell Israel in public it’s not going to get away with keeping what it grabbed in ’67 and has been expanding since then. But he won’t, the prick is already looking for a nice tribute to his peace attempts for his library, an asset for his post-POTUS speech and book income contemplated. And, oh, btw, Obama is now rewarding the Zionist hotel heiress Penny Pritzker for her vital help in getting his career towards POTUS off to a good start and keeping it well-funded: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/obama-to-nominate-jewish-hotel-heiress-for-secretary-of-commerce-1.518848
Of course she will get the job, and I can’t imagine what she might do with her power over the US Census….
Enough of this 2-state solution malarkey. One-state solution is the “solution”. Israel pushed it to the point of no return with the settlements expansion and now the only sustainable way forward is a democratic state with one vote for each citizen. End of story.
Now… making it happen… that is the real challenge.
They can go about it in two ways:
a) the South African way -> apartheid first with lots of blood shed then a country in which reconciliation is problematic due to the enormous resentment from the blacks. Economic conditions stagnant for several decades. A uphill road to reconciliation.
b) A new way (cannot think of any situation where this happened) –> Acceptance by the minority (the current Israeli) that they need to share the land and the benefits of a democratic state with the existing majority (the Palestinians). The easy way to reconciliation as Israel could cut its military budget from the current >4% of GDP to maybe 1% and dedicate the freed up resources to integration and reconstruction.
Alas… I am not optimistic and I think that option a) will be the way they will go about this. Neither party (especially the current Israeli) believe that they need to do anything about this. They status quo is all right. They barely see the Palestinians and the “dirty” work is done at the fringe of their society by the IDF.
So sad…
Palestinians should propose land swaps, and – a crucial point – the Palestinians (not Israel) get to pick what land gets swapped for what other land. For example: Palestinians get all of Jerusalem and surroundings, and all of Tel Aviv and its suroundings, while in return Israel gets the Gaza Strip.
Do you think John Kerry would celebrate that proposal as a bold step towards peace?
Natenyehu has already rejected these proposals just as Livni did in the Palestine papers, then most of the settlement blocks were offered to Israel. Erekat comments that the Jews would have: ‘The biggest Yerushalayim [employing the Hebrew word] in Jewish history.’(5)
Likewise Qurei, in regard to the far-reaching nature of this offer and with reference to the point at which negotiations had previously broken down comments: ‘This is the first time in history that we makes such a proposition. We refused to do so in Camp David.’(6) In a stunning exchange which highlights the disparity in negotiating power between the two sides and the Israeli unwillingness to make any concessions
Tzipi Livni, 27 July 2010
responds: ‘We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands, and probably it was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it.’(7) Assuming that, at the end of the day, the Americans will not say nay, Livni is able to state that even such an offer is inadequate, not meeting Israeli ‘demands’”.
The Israelis know how weak the Arab League is, the Kings and Princes will belly crawl to the US, its embarrassing, but their crowns are at stake, they even regime change their own member states, if asked by their master.