Finally the mask is off. Boldly defying the U.S., the international community, and the Palestinian people, Netanyahu said in the clearest terms possible, “If I am elected there will be no Palestinian state.” Of course Netanyahu’s actions throughout his entire political career have done everything possible to thwart the emergence of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. So this is nothing new except that now he said it clearly and publicly and he will have to carry out his promise since he will be beholden to the factions even further to his right that he is bringing in to form his new governing coalition. Netanyahu’s dog whistles about Palestinian citizens “coming out in droves to the polls” reveal the depth of his ugly racism and regrettably that racism played well in Israel.
There is, however, a deeper sense in which the mask is off. The reality is that what Netanyahu stated publicly is what has been true of all of Israel’s prime ministers, whether from the left, the center, or the right. For the past 22 years, all have been lying and misleading the world, pretending to seek peace with the Palestinians while pursuing policies to ensure there will never be peace and never be a Palestinian state. The irony is that the greatest of all these liars is the one who finally told the truth and we should thank him for it.
The truth is that under both Likud and Labor governments, negotiations with the Palestinians have been a charade since Israel continued to swallow up more Palestinian land and build more settlements even as it proceeded with the negotiations. And under both governments, Israel has maintained a brutal occupation and initiated wars against the Palestinian people to ensure there would never be a Palestinian state. The government of Israel has never been an honest partner in its negotiations with the Palestinians. Had the Zionist Union under Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni won, nothing good would have benefitted the Palestinians. They simply would have attempted to restart the same moribund negotiations that have served as a cover for Israel to talk peace while destroying its prospects by building more settlements and usurping more land. Twenty-two years of negotiations have netted the Palestinians absolutely nothing but false hope and despair.
The Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn in 1993, which to some seemed a hopeful outcome, resulted in three significant steps: the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the state of Israel; Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people; and both sides agreed to resolve their differences and grievances through peaceful means.
The logic of the Accord was grounded in a belief that a final agreement could be achieved through gradual steps. All the major elements in the dispute, the so called “permanent status” issues, were relegated to negotiations that were to take place after a five year transition period. The text itself did not address the crucial elements to the conflict: the right of return of 1948 Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the status of the Jewish settlements (colonies) built on occupied Palestinian land, and the issue of borders.
The text of the Accord did not promise or even mention an independent Palestinian state to be constituted at the end of the transition period. Nonetheless the Palestinians rightly believed that in return for recognizing the state of Israel on 78% of historic Palestine, they would achieve a sovereign state on the remaining 22%. However, due to a combination of Israel’s bad faith and their naiveté, this never came to pass.
I contend that the logic of Zionism doomed those negotiations from the very beginning and that is how we got to where we are today. The ultimate goal of all the major Zionist factions has been an ethnically pure Jewish state on all of historic Palestine. As a settler-colonial society, the ultimate aim of Zionism was the displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people and their replacement with the Zionist settlers. Whatever understandable nostalgia many Jews have for the origins of the Zionist movement as a reaction to centuries of Jewish discrimination and persecution, we must face up to the kind of state Zionism has created. Israel today is not a democracy but rather a racist, militaristic, ethnocracy that privileges the rights of its Jewish citizens over those of its Palestinian citizens.
Further evidence of Israel’s refusal to seek peace with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors can be found in its outright dismissal of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative signed by all members of the Arab League and reiterated in 2007. The initiative offered Israel a peace agreement and normalization of relations with all the Arab states in exchange for Israeli withdrawal back to the June 4, 1967 line, which entailed withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon; a just resolution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194; and acceptance of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel is a state armed with nuclear weapons and in the grip of a siege mentality due to the collective trauma of the Jewish people that has never been healed. What makes this siege mentality dangerous and pathological is that it prevents Israel from recognizing how its own actions have contributed to the despair, rage, and continuing resistance of the Palestinian people and to its own growing Isolation in the world. There is a sickness rampant in Israeli society whereby most Israelis see themselves as the ultimate victim, an innocent victim in a world that hates them and wants to annihilate them. This then leads to a sense of pathological entitlement whereby because they believe they have been perpetually wronged and abused, they may act with impunity to do whatever they want to secure their own safety, regardless of how it harms or wrongs others.
As a psychotherapist, I understand that when a person is in a kind of paranoid state, applying pressure only heightens their suspicions and fortifies their siege mentality. But the truth is that Israel has been treated with kid gloves by the West since its inception. Because of the traumatic past of the Jewish people and Western guilt over the Holocaust, Israel is granted a kind of exceptionalism that has sadly only fed this entitlement. According to the Congressional Research Service, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II, having received $121 billion. Currently, the U.S. gives Israel $3.2 billion annually in financial aid, provides it with advanced weapons including fighter jets and sophisticated attack helicopters, has extensive military and intelligence arrangements with Israel, and uses its Security Council veto to provide Israel with complete diplomatic protection at the UN. And through the power of AIPAC and the Christian Zionists, Israel has a virtual lock on the Congress which has resulted in years of unanimous bi-partisan support. Yet despite the ongoing support of the world’s only super power, Israel’s siege mentality persists. Therefore another approach is necessary to address Israeli intransigence and violations of international law.
There is an old adage that friends do not let friends drive drunk. Israel today is drunk with power and blind with this siege mentality for which the Palestinians have paid a terrible price. For those concerned with the plight of the Palestinians, it is now more than ever time to redouble our efforts. Only outside pressure on Israel will make a difference. The change that is needed will not come from within Israel since the courageous Left in Israel is weak and marginalized. The non-violent BDS movement is an essential component of the strategy of this outside pressure. Jews who are concerned with both the plight of the Palestinians and the growth of the racism and xenophobia in Israel must now realize that to be pro-Israel one must advocate putting serious pressure on Israel to end the occupation and thwart its rush toward perpetual oppression of the Palestinian people. Without this concerted pressure there is little hope for Palestinian freedom. And without this outside pressure it is a sure bet that Israel will eventually be destroyed from within by the manner in which this siege mentality is insinuated into Israeli consciousness by the culture of its educational system and its system of military indoctrination. One thing is becoming increasingly clear. Neither Judaism nor Palestinians fare well at the hands of Zionism which today is also destroying Israel from within.
“Israel is granted a kind of exceptionalism that has sadly only fed this entitlement. ”
I agree totally with your article. Well said. I highlight the above sentence not only because I believe it to be true but because it will be an ever increasing sense of entitled that is generated and that is dangerous for all of us including Israeli’s. And Jewish people quite frankly. That should not be the case as the two are not equal but I do believe it will be.
It has always amazed me that any attempts to level the playing field or reduce the exceptionalism is met with huge cries from people who see it as picking on Israel or Jewish people. Understandably no one gives up privilege easily but I think many are sincere in not understanding that they enjoy a heightened level of privilege to begin with.
Great diagnosis – thank you David Glick.
But how do you cure a nuclear-armed entity that’s gripped by a “siege mentality”?
What kinda rehabilitation do you think would work?
Thanks for this, David. It’s lovely to hear from a truly sane and gifted person… especially one who does honor to the surname of ‘Glick’ and a member of JVP!
This is an article that should be passed around to many of those still sitting on the fence.
Your analysis dovetails beautifully with Avigail Abarbanel’s assessment:
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2015/03/netanyahu-won-what
(I believe that you have a typo here: “But the truth is that Israel has been treated with kid clothes by the West since its inception.”)
I am neither Jewish nor a Zionist (liberal or otherwise). I am not an Arab, a Palestinian nor a Muslim. I have I no personal interest in that part of the world known as the Holy Land but like most of the world, I am interested in just, peaceful co-existence between neighbouring countries.
Try as I might, I simply cannot understand how or why any Jewish person, whatever their political beliefs, country of residence or personal wishes can silently let the politicians of Israel, for as long as I can remember (and I am the same age as Israel),
1. occupy land that is not Israel
2. build settlements on that land
3. deprive the rightful, lawful owners of every form of freedom and economic independence
and when those neighbours, the Palestinians – so provoked by the actions of the Government and Defence Force of Israel – resist in the only way they have (pathetic random rockets), Israel summons the mighty force of their ferocious army and commits further wrongs by
1. slaughtering thousands of children and women and men
2. flattening their homes, their schools, their hospitals – indeed whole towns
and still there is no apparent shame, horror or unease it is being done in the Jewish name. Indeed, we see more and more Jewish people willing to personally break international law by settling in a land that is not part of Israel.
Israel was born out of international guilt for the immense wrongs done to the Jews more than 70 years ago. All Jews are aware of the sufferings their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and siblings experienced. I have to say that watching this tragedy unfold, I feel shocked and disgusted at what I am witnessing. I feel frustrated because any criticism of the actions of Israel from outside is met with accusations of anti-Semitism when I know I would complain just as strongly whoever was doing this to another race. Israel is destroying itself from within literally and by reputation. I was 12 when the film ‘Exodus’ came out – Israel was given to my generation as Camelot! Tragedy! Idealism now reduced to ashes!
The time has come for true Jews throughout the world to stand up for their race, their religion and their homeland. Mr Netayahu, from his own lips, has now declared what has been the intention of his brand of Zionism in the Holy Land all along. If there really are any Liberal people in the Zionist movement, the time has come to do more than speak out because that clearly is achieving nothing. Put your money where your mouth is! Join the Arab List – stand together with the good Arabs to make a just peace for the benefit of both countries – for there surely are two countries and the rest of the world wants there to be two. Then we will see there is some moral honesty in Israel and not just forms of rhetoric from both sides of Zionism.
Israel will never, never be safe until it learns to live with and respect its history and its neighbour’s. So the one-state aspiration is now an impossibility. It might once have been achievable by a different course of action, but Israel’s decades of abuse has destroyed world trust and that dream. As Gaza must be repaired – so Israel must repair its reputation on the international stage and with itself.
” it is a sure bet that Israel will eventually be destroyed from within by the manner in which this siege mentality is insinuated into Israeli consciousness by the culture of its educational system and its system of military indoctrination.”
Oh gosh, that would be awful!