Netanyahu brings neocons and liberal Zionists together again

The Benjamin Netanyahu love tour is having considerable political fallout: it is leaving less room than ever for liberal Zionists. As the prime minister’s two cringeworthy standing ovations at the Center for American Progress showed (you can see them jumping to their feet at :09, again at 1:01:49), you’re either with him or against him on the American center-left. Hillary Clinton is clearly pleased about the reconciliation. So is Jane Eisner, the editor of the liberal newspaper the Forward.

Eisner writes that American Jews are breathing “a sigh of relief,” after watching their parents fight:

[We] become anxious, angry or alienated every time leaders of the U.S. and Israel are at odds, as if we are children fretting when our parents loudly and incessantly argue in front of us. That’s happened a lot in the last six years, ever since these two very different men assumed office within months of each other and set off a turbulent relationship that careened from testy to good to horrible. And now good again…

Eisner supports more aid for Israel– “This must be a Democratic party line nowadays” — and says it is time for Netanyahu to act “for Israel’s sake” on an idea put forward by the neoconservative David Makovsky during Netanyahu’s appearance at the Center for American Progress:  that Israel should unilaterally withdraw from certain Palestinian areas,” and thereby annex other portions of the West Bank.

Here is what Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a spinoff of AIPAC) asked, prefaced with Zionist piety (minute 47):

I just want to ask you. You went in June 2013 to Herzl’s grave, who you venerate as every Israeli does. And you said the current situation is not good for Israel, if Israel wants to be a Jewish state of course with equal rights for all citizens; it doesn’t want to become a binational state. Obviously the preference is a negotiated outcome. I think everyone in this room agrees to that. But what’s the Plan B, Mr. Prime Minister, if for the reasons you say, the Palestinians aren’t willing to reach that. What’s Israel’s Plan B to remain a Jewish state and not slide and become a binational state?

Makovsky was implicitly calling for the annexation of West Bank territory as “Israel.” Netanyahu equivocated. He said that Israel could never “be a fully sovereign state without having security control” over Palestinian areas. “Any deal or any arrangement, unilateral or negotiated, must have Israel maintain the ability to defend itself against any threat from the territory that’s ceded.” And Palestinians need to accept that, just like Germany and Japan had accepted foreign occupation after World War II.

But Netanyahu also suggested that if the international community supported such a move, Israel would be “able to ensure that we don’t incorporate Palestinian populations in our midst. Be able to separate from them. Yet at the same time maintain security in our area.”

Eisner was pleased by that part of the answer. She quoted Makovsky afterwards: “He opened the door to some sort of unilateral movement… It’s the first time he’s opened that door. Now I just hope it stays open.” Eisner added:

We don’t know yet whether Netanyahu’s comment is a one-off remark or a serious political shift that will survive what could be a rough domestic reception. Nor can we say that unilateral action is necessarily the wisest move to take…. But Israel as a Jewish and democratic state cannot wait to be defined by others. Not by the Americans, not by the Palestinians.

So you have a liberal Zionist more-or-less endorsing a program in which Israel would take as much territory as it could from the West Bank with as few Palestinians on it and make that part of Israel. “Don’t incorporate Palestinian populations… separate from them,” as Netanyahu put it. With a little ethnic cleansing thrown in, as Israel is doing in the Hebron Hills.

This exchange demonstrates the fact that dedicated liberal Zionists and neoconservatives actually have the same political program in the end, which is the preservation of a Jewish state by any means. They just differ on the means; but that can change depending on the weather. Eisner is a proud and sincere Zionist: the core idea of her article is that Jews must never place their fate in others’ hands (Palestinian or the U.S.), as we did before the Holocaust. “Time for Netanyahu to act for Israel’s sake,” is her headline. She invokes the core principle of Zionism: “Jewish agency” over the Jewish future.

But Makovsky’s idea is a plan for Bantustans. It will not be accepted by Palestinians–who seek agency over their own political future in what is now a binational state. And I can’t imagine that all liberal Zionists will embrace Makovsky’s plan. Lara Friedman and Peter Beinart, for instance, are sure to find it objectionable, because it treats Palestinians as chattel to be moved about. But as Beinart observed four years ago, Zionism is in crisis; and if such a plan “saves” Israel, many Zionists will embrace it.

This polarization is happening everywhere in the discourse of Israel Palestine. The pro-Israel NY Post, for instance, instructs Americans that the Israeli “left” and Netanyahu are unified against Europe on labeling settlement goods. The neocon cell at the NY Times joins the NY Post and Netanyahu; it tweeted the settlement goods labeling story by calling it “a move some equate to Nazi’s yellow star.” Meanwhile J Street is for the labeling of settlement goods.

And PS, the consolidation of neocons and liberal Zionists would continue under Hillary Clinton, who just wrote in the Forward that she wants to repair the relationship with Israel at any cost.