Media Analysis

Annexation is a crisis for Israel supporters, not for Israel — Munayyer

The clear thrust of events is that the Israeli plan for annexation, accepted by the Trump administration, is no crisis for Israel, which would have gone forward happily, but a true crisis for the Israel lobby, and that’s why it’s been delayed. Large segments of the Israel lobby know that they cannot support Israel if this goes through, with even Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL saying, People will say this is apartheid. And you will lose the Democratic Party if you do this.

That’s why Israel has gotten cold feet. Because the lobby is churning in rage and warning that U.S. political support is threatened.

Yousef Munayyer made this point on WNYC radio two days ago. It’s stunning testimony to annexation’s disruptive effect that Munayyer was even on New York public radio. I can’t remember the last time I heard Brian Lehrer, whose show is reliably pro-Israel, interview an anti-Zionist. But Lehrer hosted Munayyer, the former director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, to “get a Palestinian view.”

And as usual Munayyer made concise observations that I find inarguable.

Annexation “really is largely a formality that would codify in Israeli law a reality that Palstinians have been living in the West Bank for several generations now,” Munayyer said. And Israel has done it before, illegally annexed the Golan and East Jerusalem.

Munayyer got to why this is a crisis for the lobby. There is no real debate about Palestinians in Israel, he said; almost all the Jewish leaders are for this annexation. But it is a moment for Americans to wake up. And the lobby is shaken:

“[It is] a step that I think will make it very difficult for many of even Israel’s friends and allies to continue to support this situation of perpetual occupation which increasingly looks to everyone like apartheid.”

Lehrer jumped in to correct him on apartheid: “Not to everyone, but yes to a lot of people.”

Munayyer went on to say that Israel is a right wing, settler colonial society, and the question of how to deal with the Palestinians is not very divisive there. It’s like U.S. policy on Native Americans in the 19th century.

Israelis do continue to elect Benjamin Netanyahu, and the reason for that is that as far as the Palestinians are concerned, Netanyahu is not radically different than other Israeli leaders. This policy of continuing to expand control over Palestinian territory is one that Israeli leaders across the Israeli political spectrum, whether they’re from the left or from the right, have done throughout the 70 year existence of the modern Israeli state. This is like Republican or Democratic presidents’ policy towards the Native American population in the 19th century. They’re all pretty much the same. And it’s a policy of continuing to expand and take territory from an indigenous poulation whose rights are consistently being denied.

Munayyer then dispatched Lehrer’s quibble. It is “apartheid” when 13 million people, half Jewish, half Palestinian live in “a territory controlled by a Jewish state, in which the vast majority of the non-Jewish population has no right to vote for the government that dictates their lives.”

Annexation thus poses a clear choice to Americans.

The pressing question… is whether or not we as Americans and our government that proclaims to stand for values of democracy and liberty and equality are going to continue supporting this situation which has very much been the status quo for half a century. Or are we going to change our position on that? I think this moment in which Israel takes further and further steps deepening its control over Palestinian territory is a clarifying moment and a moment of genuine reflection in which all of us should be asking that very question.

The moment of truth is that our country is finally seeing a one-state reality that our government has enabled, in which there are not equal rights, and facing a difficult question.

Can we accept a one state reality, which is what this is, where people are denied a right to self-determination because of their religion? Is that what we as Americans want to be supporting? And I think the answer is No and increasingly people will come to that realization and we will have to shift our policy accordingly as we did far far too late but we did nonetheless when it came to ending apartheid in South Africa.

Munayyer called for democracy in a single country.

I see a situation of equal rights for all people within that single country as the only possible solution to this. As far off as it seems in this moment, it’s hard to reconcile any other possible solution.

Lehrer pushed back somewhat, but again, I’ve never heard an anti-Zionist holding forth on his show. This is a real crisis for the Israel lobby, and as Munayyer says, a great opening in the U.S.

P.S. You may have noticed that some segments of the lobby are now blaming the Annexation crisis on Trump. David Harris of the AJC said yesterday this only came about because of the Trump “peace plan” released in January. The Jewish Federations have taken a similar copout. As if Israeli leaders haven’t been pushing this for years, and Netanyahu began endorsing it in his run for reelection a year ago.

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Netanyahu has laid down the gauntlet and Trump et al. have prepared the arena. If the Knight goes rogue, the King will wear the backlash. Time to reclaim the high ground before the final crushing blows. Defer to UN resolutions and make US dollars contingent on Israel’s compliance, repair relations with the Middle East, Russia and China…high ground seized. Clear point of difference if candidates declare their positions early. Time to choose the right side.

… Large segments of the Israel lobby know that they cannot support Israel if this goes through …

Nevertheless, they’ll do their best to continue to advocate, engage in, support and/or defend Jewish / “Jewish State” colonialism, (war) criminality and religion-based supremacism.

If Zionists don’t stand up for their preferred brand of evil, who will?

I thought I recalled Bibi saying, not long ago, that Israel no longer needed the US lobby to carry out its objectives with the Occupied Territories. Did I read wrong, or was this just a smokescreen on Bibi’s part, an attempt to show that he, indeed, is in full control?

Munayyer understands how Americans think and therefore able to get across the Palestinian case well. Knowing how to talk is basic to PR and sways public opinion upon which the politics are based.

Americans understand what was done to native Americans and his speaking in those terms is especially effective.

It will not surprise me if Trump himself waved Netanyahu back. Early on he said he would be good with whatever was agreed upon “by both sides” and clearly that wasn’t coming down. He may have thought his embassy move was a given, a good opener and not anticipated Abbas walking away.

We may be in a key moment on the Palestine Question when everything is on the table. Abbas could use Munayyer’s talent to sell to the one state solution he said he’d go to if Israel didn’t get serious.Trump has agreed with one state or two.

Munayyer is a two-bit hack who earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from an NGO with no base that has not only done nothing, but has likely actively harmed the Palestine movement by publicly throwing people like Ilhan Omar under the bus in a feeble attempt to win over liberal Jewish groups that don’t support Palestine anyway.

I suspect people like Brian Lehrer have him on because he and other 501c3 parasites have ensured that the movement remains too weak to actually confront any of Israel’s supporters efffectively even if they do end up being expected to publicly defend Apartheid. It is simply no longer seen as a threat, thanks largely to the corruption of NGOs. I hope BLM and grassroots activists for Palestine — not Munayyer — work to change that reality. I suspect at that point they may be less inclined to invite him on, but if we do a good job they’ll be forced to hear from this perspective anyway.