So what is the (liberal) Israeli peace camp up to? The same stuff.
The 61 Project, an initiative of the Molad Center whose interest is “The Renewal [sic…] of Israeli Democracy”, has issued this poster of Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich (of the Jewish Home party), who said yesterday:
“The Palestinian Authority is a liability, Hamas is an asset”.
Smotrich is a fascist, a religious fanatic and a rabid anti-LGBT campaigner. He deserves the graphic treatment in the poster. However, numerous mainstream Israeli officials and public figures have stated that having Hamas in power in Gaza is good for Israel, because it makes it easier for it not to negotiate on the future of the area. Surely they are not wrong in this assertion, and Smotrich was just slightly more candid than them.
Furthermore, one can recall Israel’s pulverization of PA systems and infrastructure in the previous decade, when the PA was insufficiently obedient, as well as the current threats against Mahmoud Abbas and his administration, warning them against challenging Israeli apartheid on the ground and in the international arena.
Moreover, this is the Israeli consensus: it supports Israel’s crimes in the OT, doesn’t like Abu Mazen (especially when he gains international support for condemnations of Israeli policies), and doesn’t mind at all having Hamas in power in Gaza.
Elements of the liberal Zionist “Peace Camp” like to target the extreme right wing from a so-called *patriotic* perspective. The message is that Smotrich is in alliance with Israel’s worst enemies. Instead of informing the Israeli public of the origins of Hamas, as a grassroots resistance movement with legitimate concerns and a long-term truce on its agenda, these liberal Zionists adopt the right wing’s method of smearing the other side as a non-patriot, even a traitor. The 61 Project has copped out of criticizing the Israeli mainstream for its support of atrocities.
This approach has not succeeded, and is unlikely to succeed. The right wing will always have an advantage on the patriotism playing field. However, such Peace Camp populism makes it easy for liberal Zionists to hold on to their delusions about a handful of extremists being responsible for the horrors of the present, and their fantasies about “the renewal of Israeli democracy”.
When “centrist” Israeli politician Yair Lapid calls for a “Lawn Mower” operation against the Palestinians, we should remember that the majority of the Israeli political spectrum supports the worst Israeli crimes being committed right now. The 61 Project’s politics is not grounded in the political reality of Israeli apartheid and colonialism.
Thank you, Ofer. I hadn’t thought about it in that way before. Here in the UK the demonising of new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn includes his alleged support for Hamas. So Hamas is an asset to the Tory party.
RE: “The Palestinian Authority is a liability, Hamas is an asset.” ~ Israeli fascist Smotrich
SEE: “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas”, By Andrew Higgins, The Wall Street Journal, 01/24/09
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html
“The 61 Project, an initiative of the Molad Center whose interest is “The Renewal [sic…] of Israeli Democracy”
When exactly was this “democracy?” When military rules was imposed? When they passed the Nakba law? When they made advocating BDS illegal? When Palestinians were denied the right to marry whom they wanted? You can’t renew something that never existed.
I’ll say this about the Squishy Left, they’re far more annoying than scary.
In 1988 at a press conference at Hebrew University, an Israeli journalists asked the general in charge of Gaza, “Today you arrested 200 Palestinians. All but five were Fatah, the rest Hamas and they were insignificant players. How do you explain that?” The answer didn’t resemble the question.
It’s amusing to hear the claim that facilitating the rise and development of Hamas was not intentional. Hamas has written Israel the permission slips consistently over time. If it didn’t exit, Israel would have invented it. How else to refuse to negotiate, to play the double game?
I recently listened to a podcast of Gershon Baskin, who (was part of the team that) negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit. He was opposed to a new reality being negotiated between Israel and the Gaza Strip, because he felt that this would legitimize Hamas and its tactics and discredit the cooperation tactic exhibited by Abbas and Fatah. He was opposed to it for a few other reasons as well, (that this new Gaza arrangement would in fact lead to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza while the West Bank would remain under occupation and the existence of one Palestinian state would alleviate the urgency of establishing yet another Palestinian state.
I was a bit horrified or at least troubled by the attitude rejecting the possible for a better deal down the road. I heard all of his objections, but still my instinct to alleviate the Gaza problem is strong enough that I would prefer the bird in the hand to the two in the bush.
http://progressiveisrael.org/conversations-with-israel-and-palestine-gershon-baskin/