I’ve learned a lot about Israel/Palestine from Saifedean Ammous, a Palestinian grad student at Columbia U. and a leader of the Arab Students Association there. He’s introduced me to lots of Arab students, I’ve heard him lecture at the 92d Street Y about the economies of the Middle East. A couple months back after the IPF conference in New York, I came out for the 2-state solution, and Ammous bridled and sent me an email. We had an exchange, which he’s allowed me to post.
I haven’t changed my point of view here significantly, though I must say that the last 2 months have been kinder to Ammous’s view than mine. The collective punishment of Gaza, the continuing construction of colonies, it is not these Israeli actions that dismay me as much as the utter failure of my own country to do anything about those conditions. Ammous’s cynicism about the peace process is, after all, very similar to Henry Siegman’s, in this brilliant piece.
But here’s the dialogue:
Ammous: Why did you—of
all people—start repeating this Peace-Process-Delusion?! Do you honestly
believe the words of that war-criminal Ramon?! Can’t you see that this
discrepancy between actions and rhetoric is exactly what is needed to sustain
the reality on the ground!?
Weiss: Here’s why,
because I am new to these issues, and everyone is allowed their first day at
the fair, their moment to try and believe in the good faith of all parties,
before disillusionment. The people like you who have had more experience say
this is another delusion, and since i don’t have the experience I choose to
believe. And maybe I will be right this time. As for Ramon, and Sneh, I am appalled
by the racist underpinnings of their belief in their state, but I am praying
for a real shift and change here. …
Ammous: This isn’t about
experience and being new… though that helps. Simply put: if an
alcoholic says they want to quit a hundred times, it makes the 101st time they
say it less credible. However, if the alcoholic says they want to quit
for the 101st time between full gulps of Jack Daniel’s and while ordering
another shipment of Jack Daniel’s to last him a year, then you know for sure
that he ain’t going to quit. Actions speak louder than words. If
they really wanted to quit, they wouldn’t have made the purchase. It’s
that simple.
Weiss: Well I accept the
analogy although there are rejectionists on both sides, and the issue for me
isn’t reversing the landgrab of 49, though that must be dealt with, as it is
the landgrab of 67 and since, and with it the cycle of violence that has now
ensnared my country. I want a semblance of justice and feel that my country has
the power to try and enforce something like it. I think there truly has been a
slight change in the Israel lobby right now; there is a faction on the left that is not so religious and is
ready to give up Jerusalem and colonies, they are pragmatic even if they are, yes, Zionists wed to a
Jewish state. I want to move past the Jewish state but am happy to do so by
degrees if it will end the violence.
Ammous: You have got to
have been kidding when you gave me the "rejectionists on both sides"
line. Come on man, I won’t even get into this. Even If I were to
accept your premise of forgetting about the landgrabs of 48 & 67, what you
can’t see is that this "process" is all a bloody sham. What has
happened is not that the Israeli government or any of the people who support it
here have changed their positions on the conflict one iota… they have just
managed to fool people like you and the Israel Policy Forum into thinking they
have changed just because they said some sweet nonsense. NOTHING has
changed. There is no change in the lobby or anything else. THE
SETTLEMENTS, THE WALL, THE OCCUPATION ARE ALL THERE AND WILL BE THERE FOR
ETERNITY… A NEW SETTLEMENT JUST GOT COMMISSIONED LAST WEEK…Nothing has
changed except that for some reason this mass delusion has gripped otherwise
reasonable people into thinking there is something that has changed. If
not, name one thing that has changed. And no, words from Sneh or Ramon don’t
count. Name one actual thing, other than empty words.
Weiss: I’m against the
landgrab of 67 and since. I agree with you about the horror of the continuing
settlement policy. I was sincere about rejectionists on both sides. You seem to
be attributing all faults to the Israelis, and while I agree that they are the
colonialists here, and they have projected Nazi fears on to Arabs, the
Palestinians have had their part in the unending violence. I say there’s a
moral equivalence between landgrabbing/dispossession and suicide bombing.
You’re saying that one is wrong and one is right.
I think you’re
closer to this, as Doug Feith is close to this, and I ask you: what do you say
to the "pragmatic moderate" Arab states that seem to want this issue
to end? Or Iran which says if Palestinians reach a just settlement, we will abide by it. I
think there’s diversity on both sides of the argument here. Not much diversity
in the American Jewish community, though I am trying to grow that, after at
times all but renouncing my Jewishness over the issue. And considerable
diversity in the Muslim/Arab world, despite the efforts by the American media
and neocons to flatten that into Radical Islam. It seems to me that in some of
your statements you’re flattening the other side and not trying to call on the
diversity there. What is the solution?
Ammous: I am definitely
not saying that suicide bombings are right; I’m just saying that I’m really
surprised that you, of all people, would whip out the "extremists on both
sides" canard to justify your recent conviction that Israel is on
the path to peace. This is simply too absurd to engage; you know full
well that I think suicide bombings are immoral crimes, but you also know full
well that the answer does not lie in some "everyone is evil"
sanctimonious grandstanding which equates the victim with the oppressor, just
like you know full well that the only way this conflict can be resolved is by
stopping the oppression and the crimes of the oppressor, and NOT by killing
enough of the oppressed. That’s where this "extremists on all
sides" position becomes a recipe for continuing the oppression.
And no, I am not
flattening the other side. There are countless people everywhere who are
reasonable and intelligent and honest, and I’m saying those people need to be
supported. You are suggesting that somehow we need to accept criminals,
racists and murderous land-thieves when they claim to want peace for the simple
fact that they said so, and then you accuse me of wanting to flatten the other
side when I refuse to believe their completely blatant lies. This is the
equivalent of me telling you that if you do not support Bin Ladin, then you are
anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and you are just another neocon.
And yet, still, you
did not give me one thing that has changed, or one thing that makes you think
any of these people have changed. Just because you WANT something to be true
doesn’t make it true. Just because you feel like you want to embark on
this journey of transforming the pro-Israel community into a pro-peace
community does not mean that they have been transformed, or that they will ever
transform. This goes beyond mere self-deception on your part. There
are real live flesh-and-blood children in Palestine whose lives will continue
to be destroyed because of the occupation, and whose plight will only worsen
when even the few brave souls like yourself that are courageous enough to speak
the truth decide to do with the truth and resort to wishful thinking in order
to embark on the journey they would like to witness. Seeing reality for
what it is is ALWAYS favourable to imagining a reality that doesn’t exist, no
matter how bad the reality or how good the imagination.
You are letting
them win, Phil, by converting yourself to their viewpoint while claiming that
they have been converted to yours.
Weiss: I asked you what
the solution is, I dont hear an answer. I don’t think I’ve
been converted, to Zionism anyway. I think of myself as an anti Zionist or post
Zionist. Jimmy Carter and Walt and Mearsheimer are all for a 2-state solution.
I don’t think Israel is on
the path to peace. I think the United States may be on the path to peace. That’s
the crucial issue for me, to try and grow the universalist opinion here within
the Jewish community, and within my real home, the left, that will empower the U.S. to crack
the whip. I’m not surprised by the growing settlements, as I wasn’t entirely
surprised when the chief argument Sneh and Ramon offered [at IPF] were essentially
racist. I don’t believe in that state. I do believe in change, though, and in
American power. I don’t see what the alternative is right now except to have
some faith. In terms of political flattening, I think there are real elements
in the Israeli community that want a peaceful and even fair resolution. I know
that it is likely to memorialize crimes of 48, but I guess I believe that Nakba
reparations and Museums and international recognition may play an important
role here.
I also don’t care
about the character of Olmert or Ramon. I care about their actions. Obviously
you’re right about looking at the reality. But the reality is that the U.S. has
tremendous power to alter behavior instantly in another country. This to me is
the lesson of Iraqi sanctions. They worked with respect to Saddam’s behavior.
And the American faction I care about is one that brings Israel to heel.
Maybe also I’m more of a realist than you are. I am sick of the I/P stuff, I
don’t feel personally implicated on either side truly except as an American who
has watched my foreign policy incinerated and nullified by Israel. My response
is to be more the offshore balancer. Are these guys war criminals? Yes. And a
moral engagement is the root of my activity here. But in my realist mode I
don’t want to be trying to reform everyone’s character. The U.S. deals with
a lot of dictators and evil people… I go back to the fact that Syria was at Annapolis,
and S.A.and Egypt. I do
trust the Arab world here to be real powers in this discussion, as they were
not at Camp David, and to maintain a baseline
sense of justice.
Ammous: We don’t differ
in principle much; this is a difference in analysis. You think the Zionist
community in Israel and America are
moving towards peace and you’re cheerleading this on. I know for a fact that
they’re not moving towards peace, that this is a carefully orchestrated fake
push for PR purposes whose success is vital to the continuation of the status
quo, and therefore I’m really worried when you let your hope and desperation
combine to cloud your judgment and help this sick, criminal game of pretend succeed.
You know better.
