Any review of the last decade in US foreign policy in Israel and Palestine has to begin with the negatives. Trump has only heightened the bias of the last administration, and made things worse by tearing up the Iran deal and giving a green light to annexation. Israel has continued human rights abuses with brutal impunity. If the decade began with Gaza massacres, those massacres got worse in 2014 and only more grisly after Trump’s embassy announcement, and the weekly maimings on the Gaza border that have stirred people of conscience everywhere.
Yet there has been progress over this decade in ways that I only imagined ten years ago. The conflict has finally been politicized inside the United States. Mainstream politicians are talking about BDS and Zionism. A portion of the Democratic Party is firmly committed to Palestinian human rights, because the Democratic base is demanding it.
That seems to me the good news of the last ten years, a discursive change: This is not some faraway conflict over land between two small groups of people. This is an American issue. America has sustained the conflict by supporting one side, and that support is at last being questioned in a concerted, open way in Washington, and in Brooklyn and Chicago and Boston and Virginia too.
I admit I’m a positive person, and also a privileged one. As so many Americans are privileged, especially in comparison to peoples of the Middle East whom our country bombs, or supplies the weapons for those bombings. But this progress seems indisputable to me, and a foundation for more progress in the next decade. They don’t call it a struggle for nothing.
Let me point to a few events before I go off and pop corks and pray for the end of the Trump era.
Lately the House of Representatives passed a resolution against annexation of the West Bank. Yes, a lame resolution, a step back from how liberal Zionists began the decade. Yet it is progress for two big reasons. One, the resolution seems to have helped persuade some rightwing Israeli politicians to stop talking about annexation. This is an important lesson. Israeli leaders respond to the hint of US official censure. That’s why BDS is so important. Secondly, a handful of elected officials on the left didn’t vote for the measure, and cited the meaninglessness of the language about settlements. That’s a real bloc. It didn’t exist even two years ago. It’s growing and led by a formidable politician, Rashida Tlaib.
BDS has made incredible strides in the last decade. It is debated in legislatures and the White House, too, and progressive students are all for it. Many of the kids speak out against Zionism as a form of racial supremacism. These shifts were unimaginable to me when a decade or so back a Palestinian friend shocked me by yelling on Broadway, My goal in life is to end Zionism. Hey, lots of folks say this now. Yes we are losing in official spaces. So what! The opposition to BDS in American politics and the rise of organizations here to fight BDS is great progress imho because it just goes to show, again, the battle is where it should be. We’re stripping away the idea that this is just a conflict far away. No it is American as apple pie. A dozen years after Jimmy Carter got pounded by the liberal press and the entire Dem Party for saying “apartheid,” Rep. Betty McCollum says so openly as she champions a human rights bill for Palestinian children under detention that has many cosponsors.
The opposition to BDS and Palestinian rights inside the Democratic Party has more addresses than ever. New organizations spring up all the time. Democratic Majority 4 Israel has Anne Lewis and AIPAC types at the helm. Meantime Alan Dershowitz says that he is going to stay a Democrat so as to keep the party on Israel’s side. Why is this progress? Again, it shows that the battle is joined; and we are going to win. The idea that the Democratic Party would even tolerate a pantaloon like Alan Dershowitz who is disinvited from the 92d Street Y is a sign of the power of the lobby and the importance of fighting it.
The New York Times is four square against Palestinian human rights. It’s declared itself as never before. Opinion editor Bari Weiss is now the lead spokesperson for the centrist Israel lobby. Why is this progress? Again, it is clarifying. The NYT brass are in a turret of the establishment. And they’re besieged. We will see the Times in turmoil over this issue in the next decade. Jeffrey Goldberg’s own quietism on the issue – I don’t write about this anymore, he said, while confessing the most unreconstructed and conservative views on the question – is a sign that intersectionality (which Dershowitz says is just antisemitism masked) has incredible power. Jeffrey Goldberg’s job is to be a pillar of the liberal discourse. So that means he has to shut up about Israel. And let’s acknowledge that the person who has replaced him, Bari Weiss (who says anti-Zionist Jews are like Jews who reversed circumcision to fit in with the cool crowed) is a gift to the other side, much as Benjamin Netanyahu is.
Netanyahu is such an unpleasant figure that he has advanced progress in countless ways, even as he has persecuted Palestinians in ways we didn’t imagine possible (Nation State Law). He has helped more than anyone to politicize the issue in the United States. I think Israeli leadership is going to get a lot more subtle in the next decade. But the damage is done. The parties are finally divided here.
Happy new year. Happy 2020’s.
PHIL- “Let me point to a few events before I go off and pop corks and pray for the end of the Trump era.”
Phil, you are such an unrepentant liberal. Forget Trump, it is the system. It is the system. It is the system. Recommended reading: “Hate Incorporate: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another” by Matt Taibbi. Below a quote and a link.
“When asked if there was a difference between the Democratic and Republican parties (Chris) Hedges replied, “Of course there’s a difference: it is how you want corporate fascism delivered to you. Do you want it delivered by a Princeton-educated, Goldman Sachs criminal, or do you want it delivered by a racist, nativist, Christian fascist?…The fundamental engines of oligarchic global corporate power are advanced by both parties. One tries to present it in a multicultural, inclusive way, the other is embraced by troglodytes….Believing the Democratic Party will save us is a kind of willful blindness.” (Jason Hirthler) https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/12/exterminating-angels/#more-100030
Happy New Year Phil
Bari thinks the cool kids are all circumcised? Obviously she hasn’t spent much time in men’s locker rooms in the U.S. “The WHO estimates that the overall male circumcision rate in the states is somewhere between 76 and 92 percent.” Not that facts matter to American Zionists. They have their own, alternative facts. (As J. Goldberg said, in an interview with her you reported, “to be fair, [America is] an exceptional diaspora country.”
But more seriously, I admire your ability to find reason for hope, to continue your mission. Maybe, as you often say, “the kids” will make a difference. I don’t know any Jewish youngsters. No doubt future generations will have other things to worry about.
Years ago (perhaps 20 years, I’m not sure), I read something by Marc Ellis in which he predicted that Jews in Israel would be willing to give rights to Palestinians (the few that remain in what used to be Palestine) in 100 years. So maybe that’s just 80 years off now. And maybe he was pessimistic. Maybe it will only be 40 years.
As for Americans, I expect they will have moved on. (I say “they” rather than “we,” because I certainly will have moved on.) Americans don’t spend much time worrying about what we did in the past, at home or in various countries around the world since we “took up the white man’s burden.” Being powerful means never having to say “sorry.”
Ellis often talked about the “prophetic.” The word seemed to imply hope for a spiritual renewal, yet his own words seemed to belie the possibility. Confusing. A spiritual renewal would be nice. Maybe next year?
I am thinking that among my New Year’s resolutions should be one to spend less time on this site. It’s a unique and valuable site that I’ll continue to support, but I often find it upsetting. I don’t have the dedication and emotional strength that the good people responsible for this site have.
Best wishes to all of you for 2020.
source for quotation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/26/americans-truly-are-exceptional-at-least-when-it-comes-to-circumcision/
Some good news guaranteed to drive multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson (Trump’s puppet/ pay master) and his fellow Muslim hating Zionist zealots into a frenzy!!
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-hundreds-rally-in-brooklyn-in-solidarity-with-jewish-community-1.8344821
“After anti-Semitic Attacks, Hundreds Rally in Brooklyn in Solidarity With Jewish Community” by Danielle Ziri, Haaretz, January 1, 2020.
“‘If it’s not happening to you right now, there is a good possibility it could happen to you down the road – so if you stand up, you might as well stand up for everyone’ says Palestinian-American organizer”
NEW YORK – “About 250 people gathered at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Tuesday afternoon to express their solidarity with the Jewish community, three days after the stabbing attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey and in light of rampant anti-Semitic incidents in the New York area.
“Participants gathered by a tall menorah placed at the plaza for the Hanukkah holiday. They carried signs reading ‘I stand with my Jewish neighbors’; ‘White, brown, black, all together fighting back’; and ‘Muslims and Jews are allies.’
“The rally, entitled ‘Safety in Solidarity,’ brought together religious leaders from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Sikh communities, who addressed the crowd. Among them were leaders of Reform and progressive congregations, as well as New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams. Representatives of the New York City Commission on Human Rights were also present.
“’We want to make sure we are standing in solidarity with the Jewish community and being able to not only say [anti-Semitism] is wrong, but do something that is going to illustrate that it’s wrong,’ one of the organizers of the event, Palestinian-American Brooklyn native Murad Awawdeh, told Haaretz.
“Awawdeh said he believes it is vital for other communities to stand with Jews at this time.
“’As a Palestinian-American Muslim, given the amount of vitriol and hate that we’ve received as a community, it’s really important that we stand up for other impacted individuals,’ he said. ‘If it’s not happening to you right now, there is a good possibility it could happen to you down the road – so if you stand up, you might as well stand up for everyone.’
“Although left-wing organizations promoted the event and figures such as Linda Sarsour were in attendance, Awawdeh also told Haaretz that organizers are not ‘trying to make this a political thing.’
“’We’re not going to allow people to divide us. This is not about the right versus the left, this is about what’s just – and anti-Semitism is an injustice,’ he said. ‘We can’t stand around allowing that to perpetuate itself here in one of the most diverse cities in the world, regardless of political views.’
“On Saturday night, a man with a scarf covering his face walked into the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey, New York, during Hanukkah celebrations and began stabbing people with what witnesses described as either a ‘very large knife’ or a machete.
“The attack, which left five people injured, was the latest in a string of assaults on Jews in recent weeks. A shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City on December 17 killed three people and a police detective. And over Hanukkah alone, Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Manhattan have been physically assaulted in multiple incidents. The victims have been men and women of all ages.
“The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the course of 2019. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes from January through September, as opposed to 250 throughout the same period in 2018. Those figures were from Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari, who heads the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.”
For the record – Bibi and his son, Yair – like father, like son:
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201912291077892603-benjamin-netanyahus-son-yair-to-uk-diplomats-you-will-be-kicked-out-of-israel-soon/
“Benjamin Netanyahu’s Son Yair to UK Diplomats: ‘You Will be Kicked Out of Israel Soon’” Sputniknews , Dec. 29/19
“The long-standing United Nations position on the status of the Palestinian lands is that they are illegally occupied by Israel. Decades of negotiations with Israel have yielded no results, and the prospects of a sovereign Palestinian state have been looking increasingly dim.
“Yair Netanyahu, the eldest son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has called for the expulsion of British diplomats from the country over the status of Palestinian territories.
“The British Consulate in Jerusalem last week announced on Twitter that Prince Charles would pay a visit to the ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ in January.
“Yair Netanyahu replied to the tweet: ‘God willing you guys will be kicked out of Israel soon. Until then I’m thinking of visiting the occupied lands of Scotland or Wales, which do you recommend?’
“’Northern Ireland is recognized as part of *Britain* by the entire world’, he wrote in a follow-up tweet. ‘All the British settlers stayed there. Nobody claim[s] they should be relocated. Nobody disputes Britain [sic] sovereignty there and claims it belong[s] to the Republic of Ireland.’
“His rebuke has generated a mixed reaction, with some commenters hitting back. ‘Last time I was in Wales there were no military checkpoints, services weren’t cut-off and air strikes were fairly non-existent’, one user wrote, referring to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad are active.
“Others reminded the younger Netanyahu that people in Scotland and Wales have the same rights as other UK citizens, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who have a separate judicial and military system.
“The ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ is a common term for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem, which Israel recaptured from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005 and also treats the West Bank separately from the State of Israel. Much of the international community, including the EU, Russia and China, considers Gaza and the West Bank to be occupied by Israel and Israeli settlements there to be a violation of international law.
“Israel disputes this, arguing that it took over the Palestinian territories as a result of a defensive [sic] war and that no state had a legitimate sovereignty over them prior to the 1967 war, so the term ‘occupied’ cannot be used in this case.
“Palestinians have long pushed for the creation of a sovereign state alongside Israel, but differences between two rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, as well as Israel’s apparent satisfaction with the status quo have cast doubt on the viability of the two-state arrangement.
“Yair, 28, is a vocal defender of his father’s policies. Prior to the inconclusive September general election Benjamin Netanyahu promised that he would annex Palestinian territories if he gets re-elected.
“The prime minister was formally indicted last month on charges of bribery and corruption, but retained leadership of the governing party Likud in a leadership primary this week. He is expected to request immunity from members of parliament next week by the 2 January deadline.
“Yair Netanyahu has also courted controversy in the past over a 2015 tape recording of him boasting to his friends about soliciting prostitutes and about his father helping a gas tycoon secure a $20 billion deal. He called those comments a ‘bad joke’ and faced no inquiry.”