Post-PennBDS conference, Hasbara groups and journalists described pro-Israel students as "ignorant," and unable to defend their stance against statements such as "Israel took Arab land." From "Lessons Learned from the Frontline,"  Lisa Hostein, executive editor of the Jewish Exponent, laments:

the pervasive ignorance of young Jews and too many adults who can't begin to counter simple questions about Israel's legitimacy let alone respond to the more sophisticated sophistry from those like BDS keynoter Ali Abunimah.

Bryan Schwartzman, also from the Jewish Exponent confirms this inability to counter with an anti-BDS narratives. The writer asks:

[D]id BDS speakers like Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah reveal how much pro-Israel students need to learn in order to counter arguments that are steeped in the language of universal justice and human rights?

His answer -- yes. Schwatzman continues with Hasbara failures by detailing Abunimah’s keynote speech, where he de facto throws Abunimah a moral endorsement over Alan Dershowitz. Referencing the Palestinian activist/author as recently catching  the pro-Israel professor in a lie, during his February 2nd speech. Schwartzman writes:

During a question-and-answer session there, a female student asked Dershowitz, 'If an Arab student comes up to me and says, 'You took my land,' and I respond, 'Yeah, but we support gay rights,' how does that add up?’

Dershowitz said the answer is that the Jews didn't steal the land.

In addition to articulating Hasbara faults, both journalists managed to highlight what they viewed as the one victory: consensus. The Exponent found though Pro-Israel students and Zionist organizations failed to provide any meaningful challenge to BDS, they were successful in sending a unified message that they are all against BDS. Therefore, while pro-Israel students may be ignorant, at least they are successful at sticking together.

Hat tip to Nima Shirazi for catching this**
 

In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establishment's refusal to confront it. And he offers a fascinating, groundbreaking portrait of the two leaders at the center of the crisis: Barack Obama, America's first "Jewish president," a man steeped in the liberalism he learned from his many Jewish friends and mentors in Chicago; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who considers liberalism the Jewish people's special curse. These two men embody fundamentally different visions not just of American and Israeli national interests but of the mission of the Jewish people itself.

Beinart concludes with provocative proposals for how the relationship between American Jews and Israel must change, and with an eloquent and moving appeal for American Jews to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.

Thanks to Max Blumenthal--who read from an essay on the foundations of Zionism at the boycott conference and whose understanding of the Zionist crisis is more fundamental, and realistic, than Beinart's.

The American Conservative is fabulous. It has a piece on Israel as a failed state, by Noah Millman. It is broaching a question that the New York Times and Washington Post will get around to in another five years, I guess. Millman observes that Palestinians have never reconciled themselves to the idea of a Jewish state-- and gosh, doesn't their opinion matter?

Millman is reviewing Gershom Gorenberg's important book, The Unmaking of Israel:

[Post '67] The Israeli state broke its own and international law, but more alarmingly from the perspective of the integrity of the state, it encouraged private parties to believe that they were acting patriotically when they broke the law and forced the state’s hand, all in an effort to establish “facts on the ground” that would (those responsible presumably thought) redound to Israel’s benefit—or, more properly, to the benefit of the “Jewish national movement,” since Gorenberg’s contention is that this activity in fact damaged Israel as a state and since it wouldn’t be correct to talk about this or that activity benefiting an entire ethnic or religious group like “the Jews.” Since 1967, Gorenberg relates, the settlement enterprise has undermined the Israeli state top to bottom. It has fostered secrecy and corruption in government...

Gorenberg is making the case that Israel has encouraged the reversion to a pre-state mode of being; it has revived a situation where Jews are locked in ethnic conflict with their neighbors rather than dominating an independent state with relations (whether conflicted or harmonious) with neighboring states. But why blame Israel for this? How do we know that the pre-state situation ever really ended? Did the Arab states make peace in 1949? No. Have the Palestinians reconciled themselves to the idea of a Jewish state? No. Have the Palestinian citizens of Israel at least reconciled themselves to it? No. So why should Israel effectively disarm themselves and say: we’ve got enough; we’re not going to fight for more—even though you will continue to fight so that we have less. Why should Israel be the sucker?

...Zionism’s goal was a sovereign, independent Jewish state in the historic land of Israel, as a means to the moral and spiritual rebirth of the Jewish nation. If the occupation is destroying Israel’s fundamental character, dismantling the state, and corrupting the people, as Gorenberg contends, then Zionists above all should want to end it, as swiftly and comprehensively as possible, and not try to hold out for the most favorable terms—to say nothing of holding out for the approval and acceptance of those for whom the Jewish state can at best be seen as an unfortunate fact of life.

After all, it was always absurd to think that anyone but the Jewish people would ever truly endorse the aims of Zionism, because Zionism was a specifically Jewish national project. That project is properly judged a success or failure by what kind of nation it built, and how. Which is how Gorenberg judges it. And, to his dismay but not despair, he finds it wanting.

The issue of Israel being "an unfortunate fact of life" for its Arab neighbors and even second-class Palestinian citizens seems to me the great imponderable of the Arab Peace Initiative. Israel was offered a chance to legitimize itself in the eyes of its neighbors and in the eyes of the Palestinians too with that 2002 overture--offered a chance to show accountability for the Nakba by allowing a return of the refugees. That is the answer to Millman's questions about the irreconcilability of the Jewish state  for its neighbors; no, they rejected it, for a long time, and then offered an opening to it. The delegitimization of Israel that we have seen since is one that Israel itself has assisted fully, by treating its neighbors and non-Jewish citizens, including those under occupation, with such contempt.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for glomming this piece.

Noam Sheizaf has a very smart piece up at Foreign Policy forecasting the results of the upcoming Knesset elections (he's not giving exact numbers - but who would, it's a parliamentary system?).

He's not optimistic about what the results will augur for the "peace process":

"Of all the major parties, none is expected to run in the next elections under a peace platform. Labor's new leader, the ex-journalist Shelly Yachimovich, prefers to concentrate on the economy and distribution of wealth. In a recent interview she even spoke of her sympathy to the settlement movement. In Kadima, the hawkish Shaul Mofaz is considered the front-runner in the coming primaries against current party leader Tzipi Livni, while the aforementioned [Yair] Lapid takes pains to ensure that he's no leftist and doesn't anyway seem very interested in the Palestinian question. Likud itself is moving to the right, with very few MKs left of the party's historical pragmatic wing, and one shouldn't forget Yisrael Beiteinu party leader and Israel's current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who remains just as strong at the polls despite a maximalist, far-right agenda."

Although Bibi won't be unseated by the furthest right in his party, Likud's settler recruitment drive is going to tell. The man himself might be somewhat insulated from the furthest right, but his party as a whole is not. Some never were: Danny Danon and Yuli Edelstein aren't bit players anymore, they're the faces that, after Bibi's own, that Likud has chosen to show to the world (Danon is the chairman of World Likud; Edelstein is the Minister of Information and Diaspora).

As Sheizaf notes, the Ocupation is indeed a "non-issue" among the Israeli electorate - except for those carrying it out daily in the West Bank (and they'd prefer nosy people like Breaking the Silence keep the kids off of their lawns). The settlers have again and again pressured the government into marginalizing what already marginal voices voice criticism of the Occupation. A housing crisis? Build more houses in East Jerusalem, problem solved. And the spectacle over Migron shows no sign of ending soon. Who's going to stop Netanyahu? Netanyahu? Israel Hayom will keep printing (on Haaretz's machines, ironically) its pro-Netanyahu editorials, the Jersusalem Post and Yediot Ahronot will keep moving even further to the right, and independent television networks will continue to be cowed by libel laws and government pressure.

Given the way talks are going in Jordan - Israeli negotiators are pushing the West Bank barrier as the future interstate border, incorporating around 10% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, into Israel proper - the "peace process" looks like it's heading smack into another wall (no pun intended). And if Palestinian unity succeeds in bringing Hamas in from the wilderness, the Israeli government has repeatedly asserted that it will not negotiate with Fatah anymore. This is a debate in and of itself - but for my part, I think reconciliation is less likely now that Khaled Mashaal is apparently going to resign rather than mount a challenge against the hardliners in Gaza.

I cannot see Fatah, let alone Hamas-Fatah, taking the Israelis up on their offer here, since "its zigzaggings have been determined primarily by the location of Israeli settlements, but it is impossible not to notice the dozens of wells and springs isolated in the so-called seam zone between the high concrete wall and the Green Line, which has cut off Palestinians from between 30 and 50 percent of the water they were allowed to pump from the Western Aquifer under the Oslo Agreement." And Israel has refused to freeze settlement construction during peace talks (though if they're all built around East Jerusalem, it won't really matter vis a vis the West Bank barrier, now will it?).

I don't think anyone has to worry that "if talks advance in such a direction, it could also spell the end for his nationalist coalition, where key members would consider the abandonment of most of the West Bank - a strategic highland and biblical heartland - an unforgivable betrayal." Netanyahu is not going to be that Prime Minister. 

When these talks stall - Abbas will likely offer some doggerel about returning to them at a date six months from now following consultation with the Arab League, and the Western media will leap to blame him and him alone for the talks' collapse - I can't see the US doing much to advance the "peace process" from here on out, "Obama 2012" or not.

If a Republican wins, then forget it altogether (Ron Paul is not included in this, but he won't be getting the nomination). Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have both made it clear that they do not regard any Palestinian political actor as a peace partner (top GOP donor and Israeli newspaper owner Sheldon Adelson must be ecstatic), and Congressional Republicans are increasingly peddling the idea of Israel's Biblical borders - "Judea and Samaria" - as a solution to the Occupation (Christians Zionists are ecstatic; I imagine some settlers will be too, though not exactly for the same reasons).

The Israeli right would finally have the international cover for annexation that even the George W. Bush Administration wasn't willing to provide. While the Republican National Committee quickly moved to deny its zeal for a "one-state solution" after Mitchell Plitnick called them out on it, it's clear from House resolution after House resolution, speech after speech and gala dinner after gala dinner that the Grossly Oblivious Party is only paying lip-service to the two-state solution as it turns inward from nuanced foreign affairs discussion and the "bipartisan consensus on Israel" in favor of unrepentant neoconservatives and evangelical voters who see the Holy Land as just that: the Holy Land. Anything else just doesn't poll well among Evangelicals, or increasingly, the anybody-but-J Street wing of the "Israel Lobby." A further to the right Israeli government might not raise much objection to such loaded resolutions, though it would probably want more informed people to help draft them, since as it stands that pandering GOP resolution implies one law, one vote for all "Israelis," regardless of their religion or ethnicity.

A second Obama term does not offer much hope either. Will Obama seek to base his presidential legacy on a peace process that the Israeli government is clearly not interested in putting its own political capital on the line for? Would he do that to his reputation, to his own party? And will he really put pressure on Bibi after getting burned time and again since 2008? For all the (meaningless) furor over his comments on Israel's 1967 borders, Obama has not at any point demonstrated a commitment to pressure Netanyahu over his willful disregard for the Oslo Accords.

With the possible exception of Iran, which is less of a crisis in the special relationship than a debate between the "go-slow" guys and the chickenhawks in both countries' capitals, the Obama Administration has not at any point put serious pressure on the Israeli government over any issue.

And while some have hope over Dennis Ross's absence in a second Obama Administration, who would be replacing him as the go-to guy? Jimmy Carter? More realistically, Ross's hotline to the Oval Office hasn't been disconnected, so it's naive to assume that his view - the majority view within the Beltway on Israel-Palestine - leaves with him. I don't know a single person who has suggested that it would, which actually restores my faith in humanity's analytical skills. As Noam has noted elsewhere, "In both cases [a Romney presidency or a second Obama one), one could assume that the United States will continue to pay lip service to peace while in practice supporting the Israeli occupation with money, arms and the diplomatic cover it provides."

"The new Knesset could mark the first definitive break by moving the political conversation into firmly one-state territory." Yes, by finally ditching the Oslo Accords in favor of the de facto policy of gradual West Bank annexation, the one that's been going on since the early 1970s. In 1972, the government counted some 10,000 settlers in Israel's census. Now there are over 500,000.

Prospects for Palestinian unity are dim, there is no Israeli political opposition to serious challenge Likud's coalition, and as always, the US government half-heartedly plods into the room to lecture everybody, only to shuffle off when it becomes clear no one in the room respects what it has to say. And then it's 2016 and we begin again.

But for now, welcome to 2012, the year of the Bibi.

They also congeal in the person of Norman Finkelstein, who has taken some unpopular positions -- his insistent call for a two-state solution, his references to "cultish" aspects of BDS -- as well as more popular ones, like blaming the occupation solely on the Israel lobby.  For that reason he has become a lightning rod, attracting furious bolts of criticism and support.  The core issues, however, remain obscured amidst a charged atmosphere of extravagant denunciations (catcalls of Zionism and worse) from one side and fierce defenses from the other.

From one perspective, it's an odd contretemps.  Finkelstein has spent decades fighting for Palestinian dignity and a place for Palestinians to live free of the occupation's suffocating violence and capricious indignities.  He is the maverick scholar who exposed the American intellectual community as a gaggle of hacks by dissecting Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, showing it to be a hoax intended to deny the Palestinians peoplehood by painting them as peripatetics who had fabricated a "Palestinian" identity to ride the wave of Israel's successful nation-building project.  And his forensic dismantling of Israeli scholarly mythologies in Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict remains one of the very best primers on the prejudices that surround the conflict.

For all that time his fight has been for a two-state settlement: something that seemed reasonable in 1988 and in the early 1990s.  But what seemed possible twenty years ago -- with the Israeli electorate temporarily shaken by the savage repression of the 1st intifada and Israeli capital needing to recover from the aftermath of the destabilizing military-industrial accumulation patterns of the 1970s and 1980s, break through the sectoral envelope of domestic accumulation, and globalize -- seems less possible now, with militarized accumulation again on the rise in the Middle East and elsewhere.  In some ways, the argument for two states has become a relic when so much of the discourse (less so the organizing) of the radical pro-Palestinian Left in the West and the Palestinian Left in the Occupied Territories is oriented towards one single state.

Furthermore, the constituency for partition is far from a majority of the Israeli population.  Those accepting removal of all settlements totaled 18 percent of the population in 2006 and declined to 14 percent in 2007.  So, the Israeli state is in sync with the sentiments of the Israeli people.  Rejectionism is consensual, while disagreements are technical, niggling about how tight should be the noose around Palestinian society's neck.  Thus a program for a forced withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders is a challenge to Israeli power.  Two states with a just resolution of the refugee question and UN SC 242 borders is rabidly rejected by not only Israel but also America.  It makes little sense to speak of "selling out" when the two-state solution is so stolidly rejected by those who must consent to its implementation for it to have meaning.

For that reason, Finkelstein's two-state program, on which his left-wing critics' attention has lately centered, is a secondary problem in his analysis.  The primary one is elsewhere: an idealism matched with an odd moral rationalism.  Combined, they make for an analysis bleached of power -- where it resides in Israeli and American society and who benefits from the occupation.  Yet such an analysis must be the point of departure for any organizing strategy, whether it is oriented towards two states or one.

Finkelstein's latest book, "This Time They Went Too Far", is ostensibly about the massacre in Gaza that Israel carried out in the winter of 2008-2009 and its cultural and political aftermath.  The book is mainly a collection of facts, culled and collated from endless human rights reports, and the facts paint Israel in a very poor light.  But it is only partially about its titular topic.  It is also a launching pad for Finkelstein to re-tender his argument for two states: Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 Green Line and a just resolution of the refugee problem.

Finkelstein's recipe for peace is simple: truth combined with Palestinian non-violence might compel the moral majority of the West, the angry liberal ex-Zionist Jews and non-Jews who in the past stabilized Israeli oppression, to put enough pressure on the American government to put enough pressure on the Israeli government to stop the occupation.

Despite Finkelstein's championing of Palestinian non-violence, he does not fall into the familiar trap of fetishizing it, and he insists on the Palestinian right to self-defense.  His stance on Palestinian resistance is admirable in a context in which it is increasingly fashionable to decry the barbarism of Israeli oppression only to cluck sternly at the Palestinians when in weak reply they send a rocket skyward, the overwhelming majority of which crash blindly into Israeli fields and deserts.  He asks the question that needs to be asked: can one in good conscience utter the words that demand that the Palestinian people die on their knees?

The resort to the voluminous collected works of Mahatma Gandhi to substantiate claims about what the Palestinians should or shouldn't do is less convincing, having nothing necessarily to do with Gandhi's reflections on violence and non-violence.  Gandhi did not categorically reject violence as he is often thought to have done by modern-day popularizers.  (The effect of Gandhian satyagraha on breaking the rule of the raj over India is not so much an object of scholarly debate as it is of scholarly dismissal.)  More relevant are the facts of Indian history: non-violence worked only alongside widespread violence, including riots, across the subcontinent; and independence only came after mutinies within the Royal Indian Navy and the armed resistance of the Indian National Army (not to mention several world wars that overtaxed the British treasury and destroyed the fiscal basis for direct empire).

Mining the Mahatma's collected works to substantiate this or that position on Palestinian violence would be a quixotic endeavor even had Gandhi's methods alone worked to liberate India.  Given that they did not, the séance with Gandhi's ghost -- in comments like "it is still not certain that Gandhi would have disapproved" of Hamas rocketry -- is more than a little odd: Why is it always Gandhi who is invoked as the éminence grise of resistance in the global South?  Why not Fanon or Ho Chi Minh, given that Algerian and Vietnamese violence actually threw off the imperial boot?

In any case, the issue facing the Palestinian resistance is not the textual question of what Gandhi did or did not say.  It's how to devise a strategy for effectively confronting Israeli oppression, and that requires a material analysis of its concrete mechanics.  The relentless focus on ideas, exemplified in the odd use of Gandhi, speaks directly to the broader problem of Finkelstein's analysis: without a discussion of power and political economy, it becomes very difficult to discuss a plausible resistance strategy and the nature of the social movement that could implement it.

For example, South African apartheid was vulnerable to strategic economic disruption in a way that Israeli apartheid is not.  South African capitalists were dependent on black labor.  Israeli capitalists have undertaken over the past two decades to reduce their dependency on Palestinian labor through the closure policies that have diminished Palestinian labor movements to Israel, wholly cutting off the flow from the Gaza Strip.  That Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid should not be used to conflate two different regimes of oppression.

Finkelstein's emphasis on the facts ends up an article of faith.  One gets the sense that, for him, ending the conflict is a simple matter of telling the truth -- as though a superior, better crafted, more articulate, more widely disseminated argument is what the Palestinians lack (a position Edward Said often took as well); as though there are not multiple truths jostling for prominence, each of which has different political consequences.  One can see this as Finkelstein writes of Goldstone that his conclusions were "politically consequential."  The former saw the report of the latter as a stepping stone to a situation in which there would be "a settlement enabling both parties, everyone, to live proud, productive, and peaceful lives."  Of course Goldstone famously recanted, but, even had he not, the question would be if the political conclusions which the Goldstone Report symbolized were what Finkelstein roughly imagined them to be: the pincers of slight establishmentarian disquiet with continued occupation and shifting enlightened opinion closing in on a wavering power elite, overcoming the Israel lobby and US rejectionism and forcing the US state to order Israel to pull back the settlements.

The problems of this approach should not be reduced to its conclusions, particularly the currently unpopular two-state solution.  Finkelstein's facts are not problematic, and his admission that of course one state is, all else being equal, a more just solution than two states makes his advocacy of the latter seem reasonable.  All of Palestine used to be available to the Palestinian people.  Through a series of enclosures, just fractions of it are now available.  Israeli settler-colonialism was a wrong that the Jewish settlers and their imperialist enablers perpetrated against the Palestinian people.  The question is how to address this wrong: whether it can be remedied in steps, whether victories in struggles to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza serve as stages for waging the next struggle.  In this, he and his antagonists are at loggerheads.  Finkelstein, following the line of his mentor, Noam Chomsky, argues that the route to one state goes through two states.  The response from those arguing for one state is generally that, given the entrenchment of the occupation and the nil likelihood of Israel giving up on it, one might as well go all out for more justice -- justice meaning full rights of both peoples to the land.

One has to agree with Finkelstein that this is not a convincing argument: the occupation is not so much the physical infrastructure of apartheid but the people living in the settlements and the soldiers who go along with them.  It is the violent denial of Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.  The militarized settler population is the expression of that denial.  The settlers could be forced into leaving through a political settlement that took the form of a two-state solution, and borders could be secured.  Such a settlement would be a concrete defeat of Israeli power.  The question is one of mounting a credible challenge to Israeli-American power such that somehow Israelis are forced to leave the land.

The one-state/two-state arguments remain at loggerheads for another reason: they contain different assumptions about the reaction of the rulers of Israel to external pressure.  At the moment, the occupation appears impregnable because external pressure is only starting to wax.  If it mounts high and does so soon, however, Israeli elites are far more likely to opt for ending the occupation than accepting political democracy in Israel-Palestine.  Perhaps in 10 years, the matrix of costs and benefits will shift.  But not necessarily to the benefit of a one-state struggle -- with militarization and racial hatred intertwined in an escalating and destructive spiral, the situation in Palestine could get even worse if Israel itself is not defused.  If there is not a holistic solution -- a solution that cannot but take on Zionism and Israel's arms-based accumulation pattern -- the time bomb that is Israeli society will eventually explode.

By now the entire structure of Israeli society is invested in the occupation and the militarization it both relies on and reproduces.  Different fragments of Israeli power may have different levels of investment in it, but surely no one wishes it to stop, except the wizened carcasses of Peace Now and the NGO-ized Israeli liberal class who itinerantly gather in poorly attended demonstrations in Tel Aviv, huffing about the two-state solution scarce few fought for when it mattered.  Meanwhile the lower classes -- the Mizrahi Jews domiciled in the subsidized settlements and serving in the IDF, the Russian strata who do the same -- are aligned with the Ashkenazi elite at the top of Israeli society who get fat off Israeli militarism and the occupation which is a nearly ineluctable part of it.  The extremist settlers compound these obstacles, and they represent increasing portions of both the army and those living in the settlements.  They are also generally armed.  The constituents of the old liberal Zionist organizations in Israel won't confront them, and those who could -- the real rulers of Israel -- have little incentive to do so.

Under pressure, perhaps the Israeli elite would drop the occupation.  But the pressure which would be required would be tremendous, not least because the deep restructuring of Israeli society that ending the occupation would entail might tear the state apart as the right wing of Israeli society recoils and the upper class gets suddenly forced to provide new homes for hundreds of thousands of people and do so not on the stolen land of the West Bank but on the land it took over in 1948.  Why give from your own when you can take from the Palestinians?

The empty space vacated by analysis of the political economy of the occupation is bordered by a series of ironies.  The first is that Finkelstein finds himself on shared ground with many of his detractors.  Many who call for one state, as well as Finkelstein, don't realize, or refuse to acknowledge, the degree to which America has fundamentally assented to the occupation since support for Israeli irredentism became official policy under the Nixon-Kissinger administration, when the latter realized the massive profits to be made from a militarized Middle East: excellent for arms merchants, the oil conglomerates, and, behind it all, finance, heavily invested in recycling the petrodollars and profiting off the high prices theprice-setting petroleum firms could fraudulently pass off as the result of regional chaos.

Finkelstein argues that the American establishment has no vested interest in the occupation, an argument that is only literally true: the American establishment only cares about the integrity of the Israeli state, and only insofar as the latter feels that the safest route to ensure social stability is to maintain the occupation -- the rating agencies agree that the status quo is fine -- the American government will echo that policy.  Oddly, he then finds himself on the same ground as one-staters like Ali Abunimah, who has argued that "Israel is, in many respects, a burden and an obstacle to smooth U.S. control of the region" and that thus not merely the occupation but Israel itself hinders the exercise of imperial power.  Thus, for both, at least the occupation is easily expendable.  Being easily expendable, slight disquiet on the domestic front should make the ruling class drop it.

Of course, they are both dead wrong.  Rejection of substantive Palestinian statehood is a shared policy of Israeli and American elites, and beyond speculative gestures and the confessional autobiographies of disgruntled Congresspeople and State Department functionaries, no one has ever established otherwise.  There are, of course, differences of opinion not only within the American and Israeli establishments, but also between them, with the Israel lobby generally lining up behind the Israeli ruling class, with which it shares so much, especially investments.  Indeed, there have always been currents within the oil sector and elsewhere pushing not for an end to the occupation but for a settlement that at least limits the settlement project to existing facts on the ground.  But they never push particularly hard.

More globalized segments of American power wrangled Israel into the Madrid talks in 1991, when the elder Bush and Yitzhak Shamir had their showdown (the latter lost the prime ministership).  And at the same time as the lobby mounted in strength, Barack Obama attempted to get Israel to agree to a temporary settlement freeze and talks on a final settlement as had been proposed at Annapolis: perhaps something resembling the Camp David farce of 2000, when the proposed plans turned the West Bank into a set of urban islets isolated by bypass roads; perhaps something closer to the Geneva solutions, with the unacceptable (to the Palestinians) proposal of a "demilitarized" state.

Such a plan would have been a compromise between various interests.  First, the Israeli ruling class's simultaneous and contradictory desires for holding onto most of the land so as to provide space for the settlement project to continue, thereby palliating the land-hungry Israeli right wing, while also allowing for normalization, and thus normal trade relations, with the surrounding Arab states so that Israel could become a kind of regionalhigh tech entrepot.  Second, the need to maintain Israel's military spending, its relationship with the Pentagon, and its flourishing arms exports industry, all of which compose the spine of domestic capitalism.  Third, securing the basis for the Israeli ruling class's domestic legitimacy, grounded in consensus on the rightness of the Zionist project.  And fourth, the American ruling class's mounting interest in re-subordinating its Israeli counterpart, expressed, for example, in Thomas Friedman's recent fulminations against the Israel lobby and the Netanyahu administration for their gracelessness and lack of finesse in their rejectionism (America could get along fine with the couther rejectionism of Israeli liberals), because the rawness of the right's rejectionism has brought fractures out into the open: the US is seeking a settlement of the conflict in the framework of regional normalization -- and the lobby has helped block that settlement.

In that respect, Obama's half-hearted pushes have failed.  But even had they succeeded and succeeded wildly, they would not have achieved anything resembling even minimal Palestinian national demands.  There is no question that the Israel lobby narrows the parameters of debate on Israel, but nor is there a question that, even without the lobby, negotiations would be about the dimensions of the Palestinians' cage.  Freedom is not on Washington's agenda.

The charade is hard to face head on.  As with any con the only solution is not to play.  So when prominent supporters of BDS fudge the question of whether the implementation of the Right of Return means in effect a one-state solution, the reason for that fudging is not shadiness or mendacity.  Many Palestinians may indeed support a genuine two-state solution, or would accept one if it were to be placed on the table, but to adopt two states as a formal political platform plays into the peace process farce of the power elites that has meant two decades of summits and unremitting violence and horror in the Occupied Territories.  By insisting that the issue is the occupation and the system of apartheid enforced by the Israeli state, the BDS platform dances nimbly through the peace process trap which has placed the Palestinian push for statehood in permanent stasis.

That is why the BDS campaign argues for a rights-based approach to Palestinian liberation rather than a state-based approach to Palestinian liberation.  The rulers of the Gulf States, Egypt, Europe -- none of them care about Palestinian freedom.  Some feel the need to posture at support for a two-state settlement as in the Saudi Peace Plan of 2002.  But they are all in thrall to Washington, and Washington is so tightly tied to and invested in the Israeli ruling class's interests and so resolutely inhumane when it comes to the Palestinian future that only under great pressure will it budge from its rejectionism.

However, Finkelstein is correct in his argument against those who suggest that fighting for one state is a shortcut around ending the occupation.  Any one state settlement would mean an Arab-majority democracy in Israel-Palestine.  Can one imagine the Israeli or American ruling classes agreeing to that without a revolutionary threat to their power?  Indeed, it is hard to imagine one democratic state without regional revolution.  Because these realities are not widely known -- one could argue that they are deliberately suppressed -- it is underappreciated that even the intermediate goal of ending the occupation means anti-systemic struggle: a struggle that will lead to a more democratic and egalitarian world and hence by definition a struggle against unaccountable power.

This takes us to the knotty core of the question: who will fight longest and hardest to end the occupation, cut off military aid, and end the Special Relationship?

The core is those who own the revolution by birth and blood: the Palestinians in the camps of the Middle East, in the West Bank and Gaza, in Israel, and in the Diaspora.  Finkelstein claims that the Palestinian right of return will never be implemented, and it is true that its implementation would require revolutionary change.  But the ease with which he drops it is alienating -- never mind that it's not his to drop.  The dream of return suffuses Palestinian iconography.  Teenagers know the name of the villages from which their grandparents were cleansed and speak of precisely those villages as where they are from.  Keys to the homes from which they fled and to which they still hope to return grace political posters and are passed down within families, even when the tumblers they unlock are no longer inserted into physical architecture but into the symbolic architecture of suffering and redemption that covers the landscape of Palestinian memory.  The violation of Palestinian dwelling on the land, the wrenching destruction and dislocation of a peasant society -- the anger as well as memory of the erasure of Palestinians from so much of Palestine is not merely unforgotten.  It is often exactly that anger which animatessumud (steadfastness), which fuels the will to resist.  There is something self-defeating about an eagerness to take the temper out of such steel.

If Palestinians at some point wish to give up their rights, or accept a partial implementation of them, which will be temporary -- in the shifting mosaic of states that is the Middle East, there's no reason to think the current imperial set-up will last forever -- it is their choice, because it is their struggle.  They will be the ones risking death in that struggle, and so they must be the ones to choose.  One can agree with Finkelstein that the trend in America and Europe is to underplay the degree of Palestinian support for a substantive two-state settlement in the West Bank and Gaza.  (Palestinians who support it do so not because it's ideal but because in the inky night few reject even dim light.)  But that determination must be made by those who will be affected by it.  Moreover, with the Palestinian populace fractionated and in political disarray, the near-consensus embodied in the 1988 Algiers Declaration accepting a two-state settlement has dissipated.  Perhaps there will be a return to that.  Perhaps not.

But that is not the point.  One does not set conditions for supporting a liberation struggle.  Quite the reverse.  But nor should those sympathetic to the struggle dilute its moral force to merely gather raw numbers in the short term.  That is not a problem exclusive to Finkelstein.  At the level of cultural production -- less at the level of daily organizing -- one sees a more-than-occasional pandering to the lowest common denominator of liberal and conservative anti-Zionism.  That is a harmful turn.  It will be the dispossessed, not the frustrated intermediate social layers prone to scapegoating, who will pose enough of a threat to the Israeli-American ruling classes to force them to cede Palestinians a place to live their lives in safety and peace.

This may seem obvious, but the dispossessed are linked in that they live under capitalist oppression.  On-the-ground organizing reflects a consciousness of this fact.  Discourse too frequently does not, pretending that a militarized European settler-state in the Middle East is not a core elite policy.  Indeed, to again take Abunimah, the upshot of the (incorrect) argument that Israel is a "burden and an obstacle" to US power is that the movement should simply be pitching its appeals to those segments of US power that are harmed by Israel.  What is missed is that such an argument razes the moral and political grounds for solidarity: why, for example, should Occupy the Hood, or the Bolivarian Revolution, take up the issue of Palestine if in so doing they will strengthen imperial power?  It is not clear that those making such arguments realize that they are not only analytically wrong but the logical political conclusions of their arguments are suicidal.

On that score, Finkelstein does better, recognizing the centrality of Israel to American imperialism.  However, based on that recognition, he recently went on to suggest that Americans shouldn't even be arguing for aid cutoffs.  In this, he has the political economy correct but the political mobilizing awry.  Is there any reason that Americans can't be mobilized to demand that their tax dollars not be used to send F-35s to Israel and billions of dollars of cash to Lockheed Martin?  

Furthermore, the argument that waters down radical demands -- for aid cut-offs, for one democratic state -- to palliate liberal opinion supporting two states is self-defeating.  Radical demands allow moderates to present their reformist ones as reasonable, and, sometimes, such demands help produce victories.  Besides, a program for two states aimed only at mobilizing liberal opinion won't even attain the Geneva Accord or the Saudi Plan.  Instead, it will get something in between them and the positions pushed by Israeli "doves."  In that light, the argument that one should drop one-state advocacy looks riddled with cracks.

In Finkelstein's explicit demands to water down the struggle lies a tacit recognition that his battalions of disaffected liberals, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are not the ones capable of fighting an anti-systemic struggle.  In another irony, they are not so different from the battalions that those who pin the blame for the occupation merely on the lobby and the foreign influence on our government -- and it cannot be stated strongly enough that this is a raw appeal to racist white-power jingoism -- assume will liberate Palestine.  Both camps appeal to the middle class to liberate Palestine: the former to its Democratic component, the latter to its Republican one, the former to liberalism, and the latter to nativist nationalism.  Rejecting anti-systemic struggle, both refuse to embrace an insurrectionary politics of bottom-up mobilization.  Both look for a quick solvent to melt the chains shackling the Palestinian people.  That solvent is snake oil.  There are no short cuts.

One can understand the urge to find one, but this is no moment to sell short the struggle.  Insurgencies in a myriad of global city squares -- not least the heroic sacrifices of the Egyptian people -- have brought us to new political terrain.  Political horizons long blocked by mountainous apathy, quiescence, disillusionment, despair, are suddenly in view.  Mahmoud Darwish, in an interview towards the end of his life, noted that "The Palestinian people feel that they are living the hours before dawn."  That dawn is on the cusp of sight.  The debate between two solutions will have its moment, in the right time and, most importantly, in the right place: in Palestine, in the surrounding camps, amongst the Diaspora.  At the moment it has taken on the air of a spectacle.  That spectacle and the liberalism that is its partner arose in a historical moment marred by the absence of mass politics.  To that extent it is understandable.  That moment is dead, as dead as those who by their sacrifice have killed it.

I didn't write of Egypt to envelop the argument with the cheap, distracting mystique of revolution.  If in the aftermath of early tremors the Arab revolts lead to stronger upheavals, they will further restructure the political topography of Palestine-Israel.  Those revolts need solidarity.  And solidarity is made of blood and sacrifice, not pandering in an effort to conjure up the chimera of a liberatory right-populist movement or a liberal-realist coalition coming together to defend the American 'national interest,' nor the opportunistic illusion that the route to liberation runs through the corporate headquarters of Exxon.  The animating fire shouldn't be resignation but redemption.  This is the Palestinian position.  We should make it our own.

So we have a question before us.

It is if we will honor the moment in which we have the rare luck of living.

How shall we answer?

This post originally appeared at MRZine.

Max Ajl, "One State, Two States: Who Is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation?"
In Finkelstein's explicit demands to water down the struggle lies a tacit recognition that his battalions of disaffected liberals, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are not the ones capable of fighting an anti-systemic struggle. In another irony, they are not so different from the battalions that those who pin the blame for the occupation merely on the lobby and the foreign influence on our government -- and it cannot be stated strongly enough that this is a raw appeal to racist white-power jingoism -- assume will liberate Palestine. Both camps appeal to the middle classes to liberate Palestine: the former to its Democratic component, the latter to its Republican one, the former to liberalism, and the latter to nativist nationalism. Rejecting anti-systemic struggle, both refuse to embrace an insurrectionary politics of bottom-up mobilization. Both look for a quick solvent to melt the chains shackling the Palestinian people. That solvent is snake oil. There are no short cuts.
link to mrzine.monthlyreview.org
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Land Theft & Destruction / Attacks on Protests Against Land Theft / Restriction of Movement / Apartheid 

Special Report | Palestinian home demolitions: the ethnic cleansing that dare not speak its name
Livia Bergmeijer reports on the destruction by Israeli bulldozers earlier today of two Palestinian families' homes. This is the latest in a long-running pattern across the occupied territories, whose rate and methods, Bergmeijer argues, betray a policy of gradual ethnic cleansing at work.
link to ceasefiremagazine.co.uk

Israel bulldozes two houses without demolition orders
In the morning of January 25, the Israeli army demolished two houses in the Bedouin village of Umm Al Kheer and seized a tractor in the village of Khallet el Mayya.
link to www.alternativenews.org

33 left homeless after IDF destroy family homes
Yesterday morning Israeli forces destroyed the home of a Bedouin family near the East Jerusalem city of Anata in the Bedouin encampment, ‘Arab al-Jahalin. According to a report released by Grassroots Jerusalem, a total of eight structures were demolished.
link to www.palestinemonitor.org

Israeli forces 'demolish 2 homes' in Bedouin village
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished two houses on Wednesday in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Kheer, south Hebron, a rights group said. Operation Dove said that two bulldozers arrived in the village at 9.00 a.m. escorted by military jeeps. The two homes did not have demolition orders. After finishing the demolition, Israeli forces went to the nearby village of Khallet al-Maiyya and confiscated a tractor belonging to villagers. Residents tried to prevent the confiscation by standing between Israeli forces.
link to www.maannews.net

Halper vows to rebuild Palestinian home destroyed five times by Israeli soldiers, Philip Weiss
The other night the Israelis demolished all structures in a Bedouin community outside Anata in the occupied West Bank. The Shawamreh house in that community has been demolished five times by the Israelis.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/halper-vows-to-rebuild-palestinian-home-destroyed-five-times-by-israeli-soldiers.html

New Israeli search method at West Bank checkpoint worries Palestinians
According to eyewitness reports, Israeli police officers have begun searching Palestinian vehicles at a Bethlehem checkpoint through use of nausea-inducing chemicals.
link to www.haaretz.com

Without water, Palestine can forget about statehood
The recent French report denouncing Israel’s water apartheid confirmed what many Palestinians already knew—water resources in the Occupied Territories are controlled by Israel. Palestinians, unlike Israeli settlers, find their access to water severely restricted. Palestinians discuss life without enough water.
link to www.alternativenews.org

AICafe 28.1.11: Al Haq attorney on illegality of land swaps
Please join us on Saturday, January 28, at 8:00 pm for a discussion with Al Haq attorney Elisabeth Koek about the illegality of land swap agreements under the Israeli occupation.
link to www.alternativenews.org

The great book robbery, Karina Goulordava
June 1948, Israeli soldiers advance in an affluent Arab neighborhood, now almost deserted, in western Jerusalem. The soldiers are followed by several librarians from the national library. Sporadic gunfire is heard. The men cling against the walls as they arrive in a street with big wealthy houses, their occupants left in haste. Breaking into house after house, the librarians “collect” entire libraries into boxes which are loaded onto trucks. Similar scenes repeat themselves throughout the Arab neighborhoods of western Jerusalem and later on in Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and other places. In total, 70,000 Palestinian books were “collected” in this manner.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/the-great-book-robbery.html

Violence by Israeli Forces and Settlers 

IOF soldiers fire at protesting Palestinians near Nabi Yusuf
Hundreds of Jewish settlers escorted by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed the Nabi Yusuf shrine to the east of Nablus city at midnight Monday.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Israeli Forces Raid Beit Ommar
On Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, Israeli occupation forces raided the Palestinian town of Beit Ommar, north of the city of Hebron, and searched several residents’ homes. No arrests were made during the house searches. According to the media spokesman of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ommar Yousef Abu Maria, the occupation forces stormed the houses of Bahgat Shehda al-Alami and Mohamed Hussein al-Alami, after forcing both families out of their houses. The soldiers conducted inspections to the houses and tampered with its contents. Abu Maria pointed out that in addition to the almost daily night raids, occupation forces stationed at the military watch tower at the entrance of the town, are enforcing daily provocative measures on Palestinian villagers and restricting their movement.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org

Political Detainees 

www.TheHeadlines.Org

(Photo: Tamimi Press / Mais Tamimi)

this is the game #NabiSaleh kids were playing yesterday..the one called #MustafaTamimi facebook.com/photo.php?fbid… it's their fave from what i hear

— Linah Alsaafin (@LinahAlsaafin) January 21, 2012

Attacks on Protests Against Land Theft / Land, Property Theft & Destruction / Ethnic Cleansing / Apartheid

Violent attacks on peaceful marches in W. Bank continue
The IOF continued, in blatant violation of human rights, their violent attacks on peaceful weekly marches organized in West Bank villages against settlement activities and the segregation wall.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

 

Nonviolent Resistence: Nabih Saleh and Kafr Qaddum

Over 300 people from Kafr Qaddum were joined yesterday by a number of Israeli and International activists for their weekly Friday protest against settler encroachment on the village lands. Kafr Qaddum has seen its agricultural lands shrink since 1967, when the illegal settlement of Qedumin was established. In 2003 the army and settlers blocked the road that leads Kafr Qaddum directly to Nablus. The reason given by the army for the road closure was ‘security’. According to them, the security of the settlers was at risk due to the proximity of the road to some of Qeumim’s houses. In reality, Israel is looking to build a wall to surround the settlement of Qedumin. By cutting access to the road, it is paving the way for the Wall’s route. In the meantime, the road closure and forced re-route, has added 10 Km to the journey to Nablus from Kafr Qaddum and drastically limited farmers’ access to their lands.

link to www.palestinemonitor.org

 

Kufr Qaddoum drives back Israeli soldiers at weekly demonstration to re-open road

The mood was celebratory following the weekly protest this Friday in Kufr Qaddoum, after demonstrators succeeded in pushing back Israeli soldiers for the second week in a row. The goal of the protest was to open the main road to regional population center of Nablus, closed since 2003 by the Israeli Occupation Force in spite of international and Israeli courts demanding its reopening. Though the soldiers greeted unarmed protesters with scores of tear gas canisters–many at eye-level, an illegal tactic intended to severely injure and kill–no injuries were reported, and in the end soldiers, and not villagers, withdrew.

link to palsolidarity.org

 

Jerusalem Municipality demolishes a house under construction in Shufat
Under the pretext of illegal building, the Jerusalem Municipality bulldozed a house under construction in Shufat, Jerusalem on Monday, 16 January 2012. This house belongs to Shufat resident Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Khdair. Abu Khdair explained that he started building the family house in December 2011. Municipality staff came many times to photograph and measure construction of the building. The Municipality Court then issued a demolition order which was signed on 9 January 2012 and demanded that Abu Khdair demolish the construction within a week or face a 150,000 NIS fine. According to Abu Khdair, he did not receive the demolition order directly but rather found the papers on the ground in front of his front door. Abu Khdair made the decision to demolish his house himself to avoid the fine but was surprised on Monday, 16 January by the heavy machinery of the municipality intending to carry out the demolition order. Abu Khdair stated that he built the 78 square meter house to accommodate his family of four who are currently living in his father’s house.

link to silwanic.net

 

Israel confiscates more Palestinian land near Bethlehem
Israeli occupation authorities have confiscated more land belonging to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The latest land grab has taken place in the village of Alkahs, to the east of Bethlehem.  The head of the Alkahs village council, Khader Hamdan, told Quds Press that the council "received a notice for the confiscation of 67 acres of the lands of Alkhas village, located behind the racist apartheid wall, adjacent to Bethlehem". The land is owned by the Hamdan family. According to Mr. Hamdan, the Israelis have been preventing Palestinian villagers from accessing their land since 2007. Requests for special permits for agriculture and farming made by the council have been refused by the Israelis from the same year.

link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

 

Ten new demolition orders issued in Ein Aluzeh

A large contingent of Israeli forces accompanied employees of the Jerusalem Municipality while they delivered new demolition orders to house owners in Silwan. Ten demolition warnings were given in Ein Aluzeh.

link to silwanic.net

 

Mobile checkpoints and traffic tickets cause confrontations
On Wednesday, Israeli forces constructed multiple mobile checkpoints throughout Silwan, particularly targeting the Wadi Qadoom junction and the northern entrance of Wadi Hilweh. Israeli Forces issued traffic tickets, described by the Palestinian residents as arbitrary and discriminative as they were only issued to Palestinians. Confrontations broke out when one of the Israeli police officers issued an unfair ticket to a resident of Beer Ayoob. As a result, some youth attacked the police jeep breaking the windshield. According to residents, there were no injuries.

link to silwanic.net

 

In Jerusalem, national parks seen by Palestinians as a land grab (The Christian Science Monitor)
The Christian Science Monitor - An Israeli government plan to create a greenbelt around Jerusalem, preserving the ancient city's natural beauty and archaeological wealth, is fueling opposition among Palestinians and their supporters as the project moves into a critical stage.

link to us.rd.yahoo.com

 

Violence

 

Israeli army bombards Gaza; no injuries reported
The Israeli Air Force bombarded, Saturday, an area in the Gaza Strip leading to no injuries; an Israeli military spokesperson claimed that the attack targeted resistance fighters who fired a Qassam homemade shell into the Negev leading to no damage or injuries.
link to www.imemc.org

 

Resistance fighters survive Israeli raid
A group of Palestinian resistance fighters survived an Israeli air raid on their position to the east of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, on Saturday, local sources said.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

 

Two Israeli laborers attempt to assault two children

On Sunday, 15 January 2012 while a work crew was laying concrete slabs to reinforce excavation around Wadi Hilweh Street in Silwan, two workers attempted to assault two children after one of the children spoke out. The child reportedly said to his friend, “the road isn’t safe and the workers don’t care if any of these concrete walls fall on you so be careful.” Upon hearing this, the workers cursed the children and one of them tried to physically assault one of the children. Silwan residents in the area prevented the assault. The excavation in Silwan reinforces settlement activities in the neighborhood and construction to support the excavation frequently shuts down Wadi Hilweh Street, a main access road in Silwan.  On Monday, the street was closed suddenly in order to lay the concrete slabs which will be used to connect two tunnels between the land of the Al Qaraeen and Sumrain families, which has been taken from the palestinian families inorder to establish the City Of  David Visitors Center settlement .

link to silwanic.net

 

In Photos: Zionist settlers burn the vehicle of a 53 year old woman

On Sunday, the 16th of January, at approximately 2 AM, about fifty settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, entered the Abu Haikal family’s field in the neighborhood of Tel Rumeideh in Hebron. After throwing stones at the family’s house, they savagely burnt the car of Hana Haikal, fifty-three years old.

link to palsolidarity.org

 

Political Detainees (Human Rights Activists, Elected Officials, Children...)

 

Israeli occupation forces arrest Palestinian human rights team
Israeli occupation forces arrested a Palestinian human rights team in occupied Jerusalem while documenting the arrest of a Jerusalemite boy on Friday night.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Islamic Jihad leader enters day 34 of hunger strike

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Senior Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan entered the 34th day of a hunger strike on Friday. Adnan was detained by Israeli forces on Dec. 17 from his Jenin home. He has been on a hunger strike since his arrest to protest against his treatment by prison authorities.  The Islamic Jihad leader said that after being arrested an Israeli interrogator dragged him to the floor by his beard. The Israeli officer then used Adnan's beard to polish his shoes, Adnan told a lawyer from the prisoners society.

link to www.maannews.net

 

Al-Ashqar: “26 Elected Legislators Currently Imprisoned By Israel”
Palestinian Researcher, specialized in detainees’ affairs, Riyadh Al-Ashqar, reported that the number of elected Palestinian legislators currently imprisoned by Israel arrived to 26 after Israel kidnapped on Friday the head of the Legislative Council, Dr. Aziz Dweik, and Legislator Khaled Tafesh.

link to www.imemc.org

 

Prosecution of Jawad Siyam, Director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center
 A few days ago, the Magistrate Court unexpectedly summoned the director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Jawad Siyam, to a hearing held on Tuesday, 17 January. His private lawyer was informed that the charges against him would be compared with the charges filed against him in 2011 and considered accordingly,  meaning that he would effectively be re-tried on the same charges. Siyam was arrested multiple times during the first four months of 2011 which he spent between house arrest and prison. Siyam was cleared of all charges in 2011.

link to silwanic.net

 

IOF soldiers round up 4 Palestinians in Al-Khalil
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested four Palestinians in Al-Khalil province at dawn Saturday including two brothers, local sources said.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

 

Confrontations break out in the neighborhood of Beer Ayoob
In the afternoon of Tuesday, 17 January, confrontations broke out as police carried out arrests in the neighborhood of Beer Ayoob, south of Silwan, after a short period of relative calm.

link to silwanic.net

 

Three youth released into house arrest
A Magistrate Court judge decided to release three youth, Abd Ateyah Qwaider, Abd Al Lateef Qaqoor, and Fuad Rwaidi who were arrested from inside a grocery shop 6 days ago accused of intending to throw Molotov cocktails at a military jeep. The Israeli General Prosecutor failed to prove the charges as the police claim of finding the Molotov cocktail near the grocery store was insufficient evidence for a conviction. Despite the lack of evidence, the judge did not dismiss the charges but rather placed the youth under house arrest.

link to silwanic.net

 

Verdict delayed for Islam Oudeh and Ahmad Al Ghoul
On Thursday, 17 January the Israeli Central Court delayed the verdict on the case against Ahmad Al Ghoul, 22, and Islam Oudeh, 19, to the 13th of February 2012. Al Ghoul and Oudeh were arrested and accused of throwing Molotov cocktails targeting settlers.

link to silwanic.net

Gaza

 

18 Jan. '12: Three years since Operation Cast Lead: Israeli military utterly failed to investigate itself
Three years after Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli military's argument against independent investigation of its conduct during the operation has proven to be hollow. The military has completely failed to investigate itself, regarding both policy choices and the conduct of the forces in the field in particular cases.

link to www.btselem.org

2 hurt in Rafah tunnel collapse

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Two Palestinians were injured Saturday when a tunnel collapsed along the border between Gaza and Egypt, a medical official said.  Adham Abu Salmiya said the workers were moderately injured. They were transferred to the Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, which borders Egypt.

link to www.maannews.net

 

Egypt detains 3 Palestinians using tunnels to enter Sinai

EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma’an) -- Egyptian Army forces arrested three Palestinians attempting to enter the Sinai peninsula via underground tunnels. Security sources in Egypt said the suspects confessed to trying to enter the peninsula via tunnels underneath Rafah.

link to www.maannews.net

 

Gaza builders lead economic recovery – with some help from the black market
Booming construction industry beats Israeli blockade as materials are smuggled in through tunnels. For three years, Wael Arabeed did not do a day's work. He delved deep into his life savings, accrued over 25 years of working on construction projects in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, to feed his family. He sold his car. He began to believe his working life was over. But now the construction engineer has more work than he can handle. Tossing yet another tender request on to his desk, he says: "I have so many offers, I can't even look at them. I'm too busy."

link to www.guardian.co.uk

 

Remembering ‘Cast Lead’ –Jumana’s Story, Jennifer Loewenstein 

At night I could not get to sleep. My body was trembling all over and no matter what I did to try to calm myself, I could not stop this trembling. I know now that baba was terribly worried about me, but then I was so lost in a gripping, paralyzing fear that everything and everyone seemed far away even when they were standing in the same room as I. I was in a jar with thick, distorting glass around me. Every time a bomb exploded, something in my head would go “pop” and all the people and things in our flat around me disappeared. Then I would be ‘awake’ again, watching baba’s and mama’s faces to look for some sign of relief in their eyes, but it wasn’t there, so the fear kept hold of me. I remember almost nothing about what I did to make the time pass during those days.

link to mondoweiss.net

 

Protests / Activism

 

Residents of Bustan hold Friday prayers in the protest tent
Dozens of residents of the Bustan neighbourhood of the Silwan suburb of occupied Jerusalem held the Friday prayers in their protest tent.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Palestinians protest against negotiations in Ramallah

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Over 100 Palestinians demonstrated Saturday in the occupied West Bank urging their leaders to cease negotiations with Israel, in a second week of protests. Protesters had gathered a week earlier outside the presidential compound in Ramallah and urged an end to negotiations between Saeb Erekat and Yitzhak Molcho in Jordan.  The PLO "retreated from its earlier position that they will not return to negotiations, until settlement expansion is halted and all the political prisoners were released," organizers said earlier in the week. 

link to www.maannews.net

 

Protest by young activists against futile negotiations
The Muslim Youth Association in the West Bank called for a rally outside the Mukata' to protest the PA's decision to return to futile negotiations with the Israeli occupation.

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Follow Up Protest for #No2Negotiations

In a blatant demonstration of the Palestinian Authority’s colossal gap between the interests of itself and the people it claims to represent, unelected chief negotiator Saeb Erekat will meet up with his Israeli counterpart Yitzhak Molcho for the fourth round of talks in Amman, Jordan on January 25th. The announcement came barely a day after Palestinians protested against the farcical negotiations in front of the PA compound of al-Muqata’a in Ramallah.

link to lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com

 

Protesters take to Nablus streets against tax hike

NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Dozens of supporters of the Palestinian People's Party rallied in Nablus on Saturday in protest of a recent increase in taxes by the Palestinian Authority. Several leaders from other Palestinian factions joined the demonstration in Shuhada square, a Ma'an reporter said.  Protesters waved flags and banged empty cooking pans to symbolize how they say the tax hike will affect their ability to provide food for their families. 

link to www.maannews.net

 

Palestinian Activists Play Football During Protest Against Israeli Checkpoint
On Saturday January 21, 2012, the Popular Committee in Beit Ommar organized its weekly protest in coordination and cooperation with the Popular Committee of Yatta, the Palestine Women’s Struggle Committee, and supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists. The demonstration was held for the first time in from of the Tunnel checkpoint, along the road connecting the city of Hebron with Jerusalem. Tunnel and connecting road is prohibited for use by Palestinians, and is part of Israel’s wider apartheid infrastructure in the West Bank. About 90 people, a large number of them Palestinian women, arrived at the entrance to the tunnel and began playing football.

link to palestinesolidarityproject.org

 

Solidarity / BDS

Now Is the Time to #OccupyAIPAC
Ever since the Occupy movement burst on to our political landscape last fall and reinjected energy into the movement to make government serve the 99 percent instead of the elites,we've enthusiastically joined forces by doing teach-ins at Occupy protests across the country and sending hundreds oforganizing packets to empower local activists to end military aid to Israel.

link to blog.endtheoccupation.org

 

Jordan: Israeli Potato Invasion Revives Resistance to Normalization

US-led normalization efforts are taking a toll on the Jordanian potato farmers as Israeli potatoes have flooded the market, threatening local farmers’ livelihoods.

link to english.al-akhbar.com

 

Our Martyrs

 

In the line of fire: Tom Hurndall
I don't know if I met Tom Hurndall. He was one of a bunch of 'human shields' who turned up in Baghdad just before the Anglo-American invasion in 2003, the kind of folk we professional reporters make fun of. Tree huggers, that kind of thing. Now I wish I had met him because – looking back over the history of that terrible war – Hurndall's journals show a remarkable man of remarkable principle. "I may not be a human shield," he wrote on 17 March from his Amman hotel. "And I may not adhere to the beliefs of those I have travelled with, but the way Britain and America plan to take Iraq is unnecessary and puts soldiers' lives above those of civilians. For that I hope that Bush and Blair stand trial for war crimes."

link to www.independent.co.uk

 

Racism / Discrimination

 

Notice that Israel is not using the same language to describe Jewish MKs that assisted settler attacks on soldiers: MKs: Zoabi should be tried for treason

Knesset members furious with Balad MK for meeting with Hamas officials. National Union demands House revoke her parliamentary immunity; urges AG to file treason charges.

link to www.ynetnews.com

 

More Arab MKs met with Hamas official
MK Hanin Zoabi is not alone: new images show United Arab List-Ta'al MKs Msud Ganaim and Ibrahim Sarsur visiting Hamas official Aziz Dwaik days prior to Zoabi's visit.

link to www.ynetnews.com

 

'MKs who met with Hamas should move to Gaza'
Knesset members up in arms over report on meeting between Arab MKs, Hamas figures. 'Revoke their immunity and wages. We must act firmly against those who betray Israel,' says MK Michaeli.

link to www.ynetnews.com

Cabinet expected to extend law withholding citizenship from Palestinians who marry Israelis

Law's preamble quotes Shin Bet security service assessment that Palestinians applying for family unification constitute 'a heightened potential security risk.'

link to www.haaretz.com

 

'Curse of racism rampant in Israel'
Thousands have attended protests in Jerusalem over racial discrimination within Israeli law and society against mainly the Jewish Ethiopian community.

link to www.presstv.ir

 

If this happened in Iran, the world would be mocking: Photo of Ruti Fogel blurred for modesty
Religious Zionism center Meir Institute publishes weekly bulletin with photo slain family, but blurs face of mother due to policy forbidding publication of women's photos. 'Mistake caused by human error, our apologizes,' states center.

link to www.ynetnews.com

Political Developments / Diplomacy 

 

Mashaal confirms will stand down as Hamas chief

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal confirmed on Saturday that he does not seek renomination as head of the party's politburo in upcoming elections.  A statement from Mashaal's office said the leader-in-exile told the Hamas Shura Council that he will not stand again, but will continue to serve his people, his movement, and the Palestinian people. 

link to www.maannews.net

 

Report: Haniyeh will run for Hamas chief in party elections

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Gaza premier Ismail Haniyeh will run to replace Khalid Mashaal as head of Hamas in upcoming party elections, according to press reports. Haniyeh's recent international tour intends to raise his profile among leaders in the region before elections, Italian news agency AKI reported, quoting Hamas sources. The prime minister in the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip met leaders in Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey in recent weeks, and will travel to Qatar, Bahrain and Iran in February.

link to www.maannews.net

 

Haniyeh: 80 Fatah members can return to Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that his Hamas-led government will allow the return of 80 Fatah supporters who left the Gaza Strip when his Hamas party took power. Fatah affiliates fled Gaza after fierce clashes between forces from the rival factions in mid-2007, which led to the establishment of separate administrations and security forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

link to www.maannews.net

 

"Talk to us," says Hamas in rare visit to Europe

A delegation of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council travelled to Switzerland to attend a meeting on parliamentarians under threat.

link to electronicintifada.net

 

Sarkozy calls Mideast peace Quartet 'a failure' (AP)
AP - French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators is a failure and a new method for finding peace is needed.

link to us.rd.yahoo.com

 

Obama begins push for Jewish support in 2012 by touting the ‘unbreakable bond’ between Israel and the US, Adam Horowitz
Still thinking of voting for Barack Obama? This video certainly serves as a useful compendium of the ways he has disappointed those who hoped he would bring "change" to US foreign policy. The JTA reports that David Axelrod "e-blasted" this video out today as Obama’s Jewish campaign began in earnest.

link to mondoweiss.net 

Other News

 

US general in Israel as France warns against Iran strike
America's top general flew into Israel on Friday for talks that observers believe are aimed at restraining the Jewish state from a unilateral strike against Iran. In a visit set to last a few hours, General Martin Dempsey is meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel's military chief, Lieutenant-General Benny Ganz, and President Shimon Peres. The general urged greater cooperation between the two states regarding Iran's nuclear program, which both fear is covertly developing weapons capability despite Tehran's strong objections.

link to english.al-akhbar.com 

 

US calls upon Jordan to appoint an ambassador to Israel

Israeli sources have revealed that the United States has called upon the King of Jordan to appoint a new ambassador in Tel Aviv. According to a radio report on Thursday, the chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee touched upon the issue of bilateral relations between Israel and Jordan in her meeting with King Abdullah II during his visit to Washington. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen invited the King to name a new ambassador from his country to the Zionist state. The Jordanian ambassador's position in Tel Aviv has been vacant for nearly two and a half years. The government in Amman has refrained from naming a new ambassador to replace Ali Ayed because of what it describes as a "negative policy" adopted by its Israeli counterpart in the political process for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

 

Jordan summons Israel envoy over undiplomatic letter

AMMAN (Ma'an) -- Jordan's foreign minister has summoned the Israeli ambassador over a letter sent by Israel's parliament head to his Jordanian counterpart, which Jordan says breaches diplomatic rules, the country's media reported. Al-Masri, who was born in Nablus, notified Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh of the private correspondence, which he said broke rules governing diplomatic channels between the countries. He also objected to the letters' content, al-Ghad noted, saying it contained "fallacies and political claims that contradicted Jordan and the international community’s attitude towards the question of Palestine." 

link to www.maannews.net

 

Egypt 'thwarts attack' on Sinai gas lines

EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian security forces in the northern Sinai say they have thwarted an attempt to bomb a natural gas line in the northern Sinai leading to Israel.  A group of unknown armed men targeted the line in Rommana village near Beir al-Abed, placing explosive devices underneath the pipes, security officials told Ma'an on Saturday.  Security forces opened fire toward the suspects who fled the scene. Army and police forces searched the area for other bombs and used search dogs to track the suspects. 

link to www.maannews.net

 

Lawyer: Mubarak had no role in Israel gas deal

CAIRO (Reuters) -- Egypt's deposed leader Hosni Mubarak played no part in drawing up a deal to export Egyptian gas to Israel that prosecutors say helped line the pockets of one of his associates, Mubarak's lawyer said Saturday. Mubarak, ousted last February in a street revolt, is on trial over the killing of protesters during the uprising as well as corruption and abuse of power during his three-decade tenure. He is charged with approving the gas agreement with Israel. Prosecutors say it was a bad deal for Egypt and allowed businessman Hussein Salem to make illegal profits.

link to www.maannews.net

 

US considers closing embassy in Syria
Warning follows deterioration of security, US official tells Al Jazeera, as Syrians rally in support of detainees.

link to www.aljazeera.com

 

Deadly bus explosion hits Syria's Idlib
Vehicle carrying prisoners attacked near Turkish border, day ahead of Arab League meeting to decide on observer mission.

link to www.aljazeera.com

 

35 of Iraqi Vice President’s Staff Arrested As Attacks Continue

At least 20 Iraqis were killed and seven more were wounded in a series of small but deadly attacks. Politicians, meanwhile, continued to stoke political tension by engaging in mass arrests.

link to original.antiwar.com

 

Top Iraqi Shiite cleric urges end to crisis (AP)
AP - Iraqi authorities detained a senior Sunni official on terrorism charges Friday, even as an aide to the country's most prominent Shiite cleric urged politicians on both sides of the sectarian divide to end an escalating political crisis.

link to us.rd.yahoo.com

 

Bahraini child killed in crackdown
An 11-year-old Bahraini boy has died from asphyxia after regime forces fired toxic tear gas to disperse an anti-government protest.

link to www.presstv.ir

 

Bahraini killed in regime toxic gas attack
A 25-year-old Bahraini man has died due to inhalation of toxic gas during an attack by regime forces, Press TVreports.

link to www.presstv.ir

 

Bahraini Forces Attack Funeral with Tear Gas
Regime forces attack funeral of martyr Mohammad Khamis who was killed by toxic tear gas earlier.

link to www.almanar.com.lb

 

Bahraini forces attack protesters
Bahraini regime forces have attacked protesters in several villages across the kingdom as anti-government protests continue despite a Saudi-backed crackdown.

link to www.presstv.ir

 

Bahrain Shia cleric warns troops
The leading Shia Muslim cleric in Bahrain tells his followers in a sermon to retaliate if women are attacked.

link to www.bbc.co.uk

 

Protesters try to disrupt showpiece Bahrain Air show
Reuters - Anti-government protesters tried to disrupt the Bahrain airshow on Thursday, burning tires which sent up columns of smoke as the authorities attempt to show life is returning to normal in the troubled Gulf kingdom.

link to us.rd.yahoo.com

 

Saudis protest against Al Saud
Anti-government protesters in Saudi Arabia have once again taken to the streets of the eastern city of Awamiyah, calling for the downfall of the Al Saud regime.

link to www.presstv.ir

Afghan night raid sparks anti-U.S. protest
KABUL — Hundreds of people took to the streets in a town in northeastern Afghanistan Thursday in protest over a night raid by Afghan and NATO forces that allegedly killed six civilians, an official said. A woman and a child were among the dead in the air and ground raid on Dewa Gul Vally, a Taliban stronghold in the Chawki district of Kunar province, on Monday night, provincial governor Fazlullah Wahidi told AFP. “The raid was not coordinated with us. Those killed were civilians, among them a woman and a child,” Wahidi said. “Now the people are demanding justice.” Angry protesters in Chawki chanted slogans condemning both NATO forces and the Afghan government as they marched through the centre of the district, he added.

link to www.rawstory.com

 

America's favorite poodles censor Iranian press: Britain Revokes License of Iran Network Press TV

The British media regulator said the network Press TV had failed to address concerns over its editorial independence and had not paid a fine.

link to feeds.nytimes.com

 

Analysis / Op-ed

 

Publisher of the ‘Atlanta Jewish Times’ suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama, Adam Horowitz

Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper serving Atlanta's Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thorny problem of the U.S. and Israel's diverging views on the threat posed by Iran. Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas, strike Iran, or "order a hit" on Barack Obama. Either way, problem solved!

link to mondoweiss.net

 

Group responsible for Muslim grave desecration gives advice on bigotry to the White House, Alex Kane 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) consults with the Obama administration on issues of anti-Semitism and has prompted a White House official to say that comments criticizing Israel from staffers at the Center for American Progress (CAP) were "troubling." The trouble with that, though, is that the center has no business policing discourse on bigotry when SWC's actions and discourse are anti-Muslim.

link to mondoweiss.net

 

Republican National Committee Endorses Elimination of Palestine from Middle East, Richard Silverstein

Not only does Newt Gingrich believe there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people, the Republican National Committee does as well.  That mean that 20 years of bipartisan agreement between political parties and the foreign policy of presidents both Republican and Democratic, has been overturned by a resolution passed by the RNC last week.  Mitchell Plitnick reports that a nice, blond-haired white Christian Republican lady from South Carolina has dipped her toe in the deep waters of U.S. Middle East policy and suddenly become expert enough at it to topple long-term consensus.

link to www.richardsilverstein.com

 

Bruce Riedel: Netanyahu’s Goal is ‘Regime Change’…in Washington, Richard Silverstein

Earlier this week, Brookings Institution scholar Bruce Riedel spoke (listen to audio here) at an Atlantic Council Iran symposium.  He made some very incisive comments which are worth mentioning.  First, he began his remarks with the colorful phrase which fittingly integrated the world political situation with the U.S. presidential elections...

link to www.richardsilverstein.com

 

www.TheHeadlines.Org

The discourse is opening up on the central political question involving Middle East policy-making: what is the influence of the Israel lobby? Tom Friedman's "bought and paid for" column in the Times was huge. David Bromwich has a great piece about the Republicans up at the New York Review of Books that, echoing Friedman, speaks frankly about the role of conservative Jewish money in the Republican race.

Then there's this from Jordan Michael Smith at Salon, interviewing Zbig Brzezinski:

He thinks the Obama administration “should have stuck to its guns in promoting a fair settlement” in the Middle East. A longtime foe of Israel’s partisans in the United States, he says the Obama team “fumbled by getting outmaneuvered by the Israelis.” Then he gets blunter: “Domestic politics interceded: The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”Brzezinski is still a believer in the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and is hopeful that Obama will again take up the cause if he gets a second term. “He would have time and the historical immunity to do so, because he wouldn’t be facing an election.” He also thinks space has opened up in the United States to be more critical of Israel. “The American public is becoming more discriminating, and the Jewish public in America is becoming more discriminating,” he says.

The fascinating thing about this statement is that Brzezinski has always believed this stuff but he is now taking off his muzzle entirely. (I interviewed him a couple years back and sensed the self-censorship) Nothing can stop this conversation. The only question is how long the resistance to it will last. Brzezinski is right to focus on the Jewish community splitting. Walt and Mearsheimer's analysis could not make headway till it was embraced by Jews (because we are a powerful community, because we license or delicense speech on grounds of anti-semitism). It has been embraced by Jews.

Looks like the election this year will be between two-state Dems and one-state Republicans. Fascinating. Mitchell Plitnick reports (thanks to Paul Mutter):

Last week in New Orleans, the Republican National Committee officially adopted a resolution supporting a one-state solution in Israel-Palestine.

This news came to me via a very trusted source, but both I and my source were puzzled by the fact that we could find nothing in the media confirming this. I called the RNC, but they would neither confirm nor deny.

So, I contacted Cindy Costa, the RNC’s National Committeewoman from South Carolina who was listed as the sponsor of the resolution. Here’s our e-mail exchange:

Me: Dear Ms. Costa,
I am a correspondent for several web-based news outlets, including Inter Press Service. I received the resolution below today, and would like to write an article about it. I just wanted to check with you that this was in fact an officially adopted RNC resolution. Can you please let me know? Thanks.

Costa: Yes it was adopted unanimously by the RNC last Friday at our winter meeting in New Orleans.  Cindy

So, that seems pretty clear. I reprint the entire text of the resolution below (and I sent it fully to Ms. Costa so she could confirm the full text), but the key passage is this one:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the members of this body support Israel in their natural and God-given right of self-governance and self-defense upon their own lands, recognizing that Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others; and that peace can be afforded the region only through a united Israel governed under one law for all people.

I don’t see how anyone could read that as anything but a statement in support of a one-state solution.

A report sent to the European Union on Monday by its member countries’ top diplomats in Jerusalem and Ramallah proposed state-level boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel’s illegal colonial infrastructure in the occupied West Bank. These recommendations, unprecedented among Western nations, herald a breakthrough for the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Like most efforts opposing only the West Bank settlements, they appear somewhat myopic about the state policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that stand squarely behind settlers’ walls and guns, while also denying refugees their homes and Palestinian citizens of Israel equality under its laws. But high-level backing for even modest steps can afford many new opportunities. 

The Independent reports:

 The European Commission should consider passing legislation to prevent finance generated within its member states being used to support illegal Israeli settlements in occupied territory, the bloc’s top diplomats in Jerusalem and Ramallah have advised …

The finance recommendation has been worded with deliberate vagueness to maintain a consensus among sharply differing views within the EU. But the clear implication is that some of the European Consuls General – ambassador-rank representatives to the Palestinians – want the Commission to consider for the first time whether it has an obligation to legislate on the grounds that the settlements contravene international law.

Under one interpretation of the proposal, the Commission would use legislation to force companies in Europe to break their links with businesses involved in settlement construction and commercial activities. This follows some high-profile voluntary examples like that of Deutsche Bahn, which last year pulled out of electrification of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem rail link because it cut through the West Bank. 

The Guardian says that the document

calls on the European commission to consider legislation “to prevent/discourage financial transactions in support of settlement activity”.

Legislation should prohibit trade and business with settlements based on their illegality under international law, rather than a politically-driven boycott, said one EU diplomatic source.

 And Ynetnews panics: 

The recommendations include the preparation of a “blacklist” of settlers considered violent, in order to later mull the option of banning them from entering the European Union. The document also seeks to encourage more PLO activity and representation in east Jerusalem.

Moreover, the European report advises senior EU figures visiting east Jerusalem to refrain from being escorted by official Israeli representatives or security personnel.

A Western diplomat told Ynet that the Europeans are well aware of the implications of the latest recommendations.

Talk is cheap, of course. But careful organizing and determined action by Palestinians and solidarity activists could make the next steps quicker and more comprehensive. Whatever we think of the two-state “solution” these proposals aim to bolster, they offer us a valuable new arsenal in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

And speaking of a two-state resolution to Israel’s 63-year occupation of Palestinian land, and ongoing displacement and subjugation of its indigenous people, it appears that these same diplomats, many of whom have spent their lives pursuing it, are nearing despair as its infeasibility becomes undeniable. In an article provocatively entitled “EU on verge of abandoning hope for a viable Palestinian state,” The Independent says:

The Palestinian presence in the largest part of the occupied West Bank – has been, “continuously undermined” by Israel in ways that are “closing the window” on a two-state solution, according to an internal EU report seen by The Independent …

With the number of Jewish settlers now at more than double the shrinking Palestinian population in the largely rural area, the report warns bluntly that, “if current trends are not stopped and reversed, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders seem more remote than ever” …

The 16-page document is the EU’s starkest critique yet of how a combination of house and farm building demolitions; a prohibitive planning regime; relentless settlement expansion; the military’s separation barrier; obstacles to free movement; and denial of access to vital natural resources, including land and water, is eroding Palestinian tenure of the large tract of the West Bank on which hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state depend …

Area C is one of three zones allocated by the 1993 Oslo agreement. Area A includes major Palestinian cities, and is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Area B is under shared Israeli-Palestinian control.

Although Area C is the least populous, the report says “the window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing with the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and access restrictions for Palestinians in Area C [which] compromises crucial natural resources and land for the future demographic and economic growth of a viable Palestinian state”.

It says the EU needs “at a political” level to persuade Israel to redesignate Area C, but in the meantime it should “support Palestinian presence in, and development of the area”. The report says the destruction of homes, public buildings and workplaces result in “forced transfer of the native population” and that construction is effectively prohibited in 70 per cent of the land – and then in zones largely allocated to settlements of the Israeli military.

While predictably mincing words, the diplomats’ statements coincide with King Abdullah of Jordan, Israel’s last ally in the region, dropping the a-bomb to The Washington Post:

If we haven’t crossed that line, we’ll cross the line sooner or later where the two-state solution is no longer possible, at which point the only solution is the one-state solution. And then, are we talking about apartheid or democracy?

The French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee also accused Israel of using water as “a weapon serving the new apartheid” two weeks ago. And all of this comes shortly after Israel’s public condemnation by every bloc of the United Nations Security Council – with the predictable exception of the United States – in December.

As the one-state reality seeps into the world’s consciousness, we can expect increasing numbers of Israel’s current allies to slowly inch – or, perhaps, quickly run – away from it. These developments offer a moment of opportunity, for Palestinians and all supporters of human equality. What can we do but try to make use of it?