- FEBRUARY 10, 2010
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AFPAK
Why We Shouldn't Listen to Gen. McChrystal
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MEIN KAMPF
Discrediting Hitler's Tome
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IRAN
Regime Change Isn't Coming
The treason of the hawks
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 3:47 PM
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In Every War Must End, his classic study of war termination, Fred Iklé coined the term "treason of the hawks" to describe those tragic situations where hardliners stubbornly refuse to make peace and thereby lead their countries to disaster. Iklé, who served as Ronald Reagan’s under secretary of defense and is certainly no dove, recognized that obstinate opposition to making peace is as dangerous to a nation's future as naïve pacifism and potentially as damaging as deliberately selling out to the enemy.
After pointing out that "treason" is a word that carries especially harsh moral connotations, Iklé noted:
[T]he English language is without a word of equally strong opprobrium to designate acts that can lead to the destruction of one’s government and one’s country, not by giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but by making enemies, not by fighting too little, but by fighting too much and too long. 'Adventurism' -- much too weak a word -- is perhaps the best term to describe this 'treason of the hawks.' ... Treason can help our enemies destroy our country by making them stronger; adventurism can destroy our country by making our enemies more numerous."
I was reminded of Iklé’s insights when I read about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ideas for resuming the peace process with the Palestinians. Netanyahu clearly wants to avoid an open rift with the Obama administration, which has forcefully reiterated its commitment to negotiating a two-state solution. To do that, he has to pay lip service to the peace process. But because Netanyahu has long opposed the creation of a viable Palestinian state and instead wants to extend Israel's control of the West Bank, he has to lay out a set of demands that will endlessly delay the process and make it hard for Obama to put meaningful pressure on him.
According to Ha'aretz, Netanyahu will insist that the Palestinians go beyond their prior recognition of Israel's right to exist (as expressed in the 1993 Oslo Accord) and explicitly recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." Furthermore, he wants the United States to agree that a future Palestinian state be barred from possessing its own army and forbidden from making alliances with other countries, while Israel is permitted to monitor its borders, its airspace, and its use of the electromagnetic spectrum, presumably in perpetuity. In the meantime, the expansion of Israeli settlements will surely continue, and in ways that will soon preclude any possibility of a territorially contiguous state on the West Bank. Lastly, Netanyahu wants to link progress toward a two-state solution with an end to Iran's nuclear program. As I've noted before, this condition would allow Tehran -- purposely or inadvertently -- to derail a two-state solution by stonewalling on the nuclear issue. Ironically, this outcome might suit Iran and Netanyahu alike: Israel could keep expanding settlements and the Islamic Republic could continue to play the Palestine card against its Arab rivals.
My question is this: What is Netanyahu thinking? Doesn't he realize that time has nearly run out for the two-state solution, and that failure to achieve it is by far the most serious threat facing Israel? The prime minister and his allies keep harping about an "existential" threat from Iran, but this bogeyman is mostly nonsense. Iran has zero -- repeat, zero -- nuclear weapons today, and even if it were to acquire a few at some point in the future, it could not use them against nuclear-armed Israel without committing national suicide. Let me say that again: national suicide.
And could someone please explain to Netanyahu that a group of devout Muslim clerics aren't likely to fire warheads at a land that contains the third holiest site in Islam? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said some remarkably foolish things about the Holocaust and repeatedly questioned Israel's legitimacy (as in his oft-mistranslated statement about Israel "vanishing from the page of time"), but he's never threatened to murder millions of Israelis (and Palestinians) with nuclear weapons. Just last weekend, he even told ABC's George Stephanopolous that if the Palestinians reached an agreement with Israel, then Iran would support it. Moreover, as Roger Cohen has noted, there is no evidence that Ahmadinejad has any particular animus toward Iran's own Jewish community. Despite his many offensive statements, in short, Ahmadinejad is not Adolf Hitler and we are not living in the 1930s.
The real threat to Israel's future is the occupation, and the conflict with the Palestinians that it perpetuates. To see that, all you have to do is look at current demographic trends and poll results and then ponder the consequences for Israel. There are presently about 5.6 million Jews in "Greater Israel," (i.e., the 1967 borders plus the West Bank) and about 5.2 million Arabs (of whom nearly 1.5 million are citizens of Israel). Palestinian birth rates are substantially higher, however, which means they will be a majority of the population in "Greater Israel" in the not-too-distant future. To put it bluntly, it is Palestinian wombs and not Iranian bombs that pose the real threat.
Netanyahu ought to be equally concerned by signs that the Zionist ideal is losing its hold within Israel itself. There are reportedly between 700,000 and one million Israeli citizens now living abroad, and emigration has outpaced immigration since 2007. According to Ian Lustick and John Mueller, only 69 percent of Israeli Jews say they want to remain in the country, and a 2007 poll reported that about one-quarter of Israelis are considering leaving, including almost half of all young people. As Lustick and Mueller note, hyping the threat from Iran may be making this problem worse, especially among the most highly educated (and thus most mobile) Israelis. Israeli society is also becoming more polarized -- which is one reason Netanyahu had such trouble forming a governing coalition -- with the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox at odds with secular Israelis, to include the more recent immigrants that form the core of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's support.
So what are Israel's options? One alternative would be to make the West Bank and Gaza part of Israel, but allow the Palestinians who live there to have full political rights, thereby creating a binational liberal democracy. This idea has been promoted by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of Palestinians, but the objections to it are compelling. It would mean abandoning the Zionist vision of a Jewish state, which makes it anathema to almost all Israeli Jews, who want to live in a Jewish state. The practical obstacles to this outcome are equally daunting, and binational states do not have an encouraging track record. If the choice were between this option and a genuine two-state solution, there can be little doubt about which Netanyahu would prefer.
A second option would be for Israel to retain the West Bank and expel the Palestinians by force, there preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. A few Israeli extremists have proposed something akin to this, but to expel millions of Palestinians in this fashion would be a crime against humanity. The Palestinians would surely resist being driven from their homes, and such a heinous act would take place in full view of a horrified world and damage Israel's reputation far more than the recent carnage in Gaza did. No true friend of Israel could support such a course of action, and one hopes that Netanyahu has the good sense to recognize that it would be a tragic mistake to go down this road.
The only other option to a genuine two-state solution is some form of apartheid, in which the Palestinians are granted limited autonomy in some disconnected and economically crippled enclaves whose borders, airspace, and aquifers are controlled by Israel. The Palestinians' fate, in other words, would remain in Israel's hands, even if some modest efforts were made to improve their living conditions. This outcome seems to be what Netanyahu has in mind, but it is not a viable long-term solution either. The Palestinians are not going to accept being permanent vassals -- especially once they are a majority in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean -- and they will continue to demand either a viable state of their own or full political rights within Israel. Over time, this option is going to be an increasingly difficult sell around the world, and especially in the West.
That is why former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Ha'aretz in 2008, "if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses," Israel will face "a South-African style struggle for voting rights." Once that happened, he warned, "the state of Israel is finished." Despite his long career as a Likud Party stalwart, Olmert finally recognized that if the two-state solution becomes impossible, Israel will be stuck defending a political order that is anathema to prevailing Western and American values. Although lots of other democracies have behaved abominably towards minorities in the past, such behavior is not legitimate in the 21st century. Americans favor self-determination and our own political traditions emphasize liberal values and the virtues of a melting-pot society. Even a lobbying group as powerful as AIPAC will find it hard to defend Israeli apartheid.
A two-state solution is not an ideal outcome; it is merely the best available alternative. If Netanyahu wants to safeguard Israel's future, therefore, he would not spend his time inventing new conditions and doing his best to make the peace process a charade. Instead, he would get on the phone to the White House and urge them to get moving as soon as possible to establish a viable Palestinian state, and he'd ask Obama to commit the resources necessary to make it work. He'd also be on the phone to Abraham Foxman of the ADL, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, and Howard Kohr of AIPAC, urging them to pressure the White House and especially Congress to broker a two-state solution before it's too late. While he's at it, he'd denounce false friends like the Reverend John Hagee of Christians United for Israel and he'd invite Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street to come to Jerusalem and help him map out a strategy to turn the Titanic around before it hits the approaching iceberg.
There would still be lots of hard bargaining to do, of course, and Netanyahu would have to make sure that a final-status agreement protected Israel's legitimate security concerns. But by acting in this way, Netanyahu would be helping preserve Israel's future instead of putting it in jeopardy.
If Netanayahu can't figure this out, then Barack Obama and George Mitchell are going to have to sit him down and explain the situation to him. And if they do, one can only hope that Israel's supporters here in the United States abandon their usual modus operandi and back Obama and Mitchell up. If they don't, they may someday have to explain to their grandchildren why they watched Israel drive itself off a cliff and did nothing to stop it.
Photo: Ammar Awad-pool/Getty Images
Professor Walt,
Please write a detailed post on how you believe Hamas will give up power in Gaza and accept a two state solution.
I'll do that, Dave123.
First, Walt has presented a detailed explanation why israel cannot survive long without a two-state solution.
Suppose the israeli government does its best to negotiate an honest, workable two-state solution and fails. That's bad for israel's survival, and there's nothing they can do about it. It's also bad for Hamas. My guess is that israel would survive hamas by five years, maybe as much as twenty years. Israel did what they could to get a workable solution and failed. Too bad, no shame to their memory for the effort.
Suppose on the other hand the israeli government does its best to negotiate a workable two-state solution and Hamas doesn't stop them. You can argue that this is impossible, but it isn't. Far easier to hold onto an inflexible doctrinaire position when there is no hope. Hamas might see that the offers are sincere and accept them. Or hamas might take an inflexible position and lose support to the point they become irrelevant. Either way could happen. And then israel could get the two-state solution that gives them a chance to survive.
So, say they get their two-state solution and palestine then collects weapons and attacks. Israel has to beat them. Fight a bloody war. And after it's over they have to let palestinians lick their wounds and maybe get ready to try it again. What's the alternative? Note that this worked for the USA and mexico. The USA beat mexico and took the better half of their land, and mexico accepted it. Could palestine eventually accept something similar? Maybe.
We don't need a detailed plan to describe why palestinians have to do what you want, even though you're sure they don't want to. That isn't the issue here. The issue is that israel is pretty much doomed without a two-state plan (and likely so are palestinians), and so israel absolutely must get one that works if they can.
Nobody can provide you with a 100% guarantee that it has to work. There's no guarantee. The argument is that israel has little to lose by making their best effort at a viable two-state solution. The intensity of effort they put into winning the 1967 war. Because there is no adequate alternative.
Congratulations to Stephen Walt and to J Thomas for excellent contributions. Just one additional point: The US President could offer recognition to Palestine, subject to suitable conditions, and offer his administration's support to the Palestine government in achieving control over its territory and rebuilding, without waiting for an agreement between Israel and the PLO and without needing agreement from the US Congress -- just as Kosovo was recognised by the Bush administration without waiting for agreement between Kosovo and Serbia.
The attempt might fail, but arguments like those J. Thomas puts forward apply in this case too: the US has little to lose by making its best effort to bypass Netanyahu's obstruction.
@Dave123
If there is a viable two state solution then the Fatah faction would be proven right and thus most support for Hamas would evaporate. The only reason Hamas has any support at all is because the so called "peace process" has brought no gains for most Palestinians, only more Jewish settlements and more Israeli control over their movements, trade and resources. Once they have hope for their future then martyrdom will lose its appeal.
The choice now is live in humiliation and poverty OR die a glorious martyr.
With a viable state the choice would be, go to school, get a job and live with dignity OR go kill yourself.
That is the Palestinian perspective. Israeli paranoia and their tendency over exagerate every threat is what I see to be the biggest obstacle to the peace process moving forward.
I have made comparisons between Israel and Pakistan in the past. How 2 nations founded on the idea that a religious community needs its own nation separate from its neighbors, but cannot make peace with them. Just as Pakistan cannot see the internal threat that the Taliban poses to its existence, so Israel cannot see the continued threat of holding onto the West Bank and blockading Gaza into perpetuity. When you define your nation by holding hostility towards your neighbors, well, that is a hard habit to break.
It is also very odd that Israel can demand it maintain nuclear and conventional military superiority in the region, but when its neighbors choose to arm themselves against a country that has a habit of bombing them - they are considered destabilizing.
A decent two-state solution has become impossible
I'll just quote John Whitbeck from the CSMonitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0914/p09s01-coop.htm?print=true
A decent two-state solution to the 'Palestinian problem' has become impossible.
By John V. Whitbeck
[...]
If this problem is ever to be solved, it must be redefined. Those who truly seek justice and peace in the Middle East must dare to speak openly and honestly of the "Zionism problem" – and then to draw the moral, ethical, and practical conclusions that follow.
When South Africa was under a racial-supremacist, settler-colonial regime, the world recognized that the problem was the ideology and political system of the state. Anyone outside the country who referred to the "black problem" or the "native problem" (or, for that matter, to the "white problem") would instantly have been branded a racist.
The world also recognized that the solution to that problem could not be found either in "separation" (apartheid in Afrikaans) and scattered native reservations (called "independent states" by the South African regime and Bantustans by the rest of the world) or in driving the settler-colonial group in power into the sea. Rather, the solution had to be found – and to almost universal satisfaction was found – in democracy, in white South Africans growing out of their racial-supremacist ideology and political system and accepting that their interests and their children's futures would be best served in a democratic, non-racist state with equal rights for all who live there.
The solution for the land which, until it was literally wiped off the map in 1948, was called Palestine is the same. It can only be democracy.
The ever-receding "political horizon" for a decent two-state solution, which, on the ground, becomes less practical with each passing year of expanding settlements, bypass roads, and walls, is weighed down by a multitude of excruciatingly difficult "final status" issues. Israeli governments have consistently refused to discuss these final-status issues seriously, preferring to postpone them to the end of a road which is never reached – and which, almost certainly, is intended never to be reached.
Just as marriage is vastly less complicated than divorce, democracy is vastly less complicated than partition. A democratic post-Zionist solution would not require any borders to be agreed, any division of Jerusalem, anyone to move from his current home, or any assets to be evaluated and apportioned. Full rights of citizenship would simply be extended to all the surviving natives still living in the country, as happened in the United States in the early 20th century and in South Africa in the late 20th century.
The obstacle to such a simple – and morally unimpeachable – solution is, of course, intellectual and psychological. Traumatized by the Holocaust and perceived insecurity as a Jewish island in an Arab sea, Israelis have immense psychological problems in coming to grips with the practical impossibility of sustaining forever what most of mankind views as a racial-supremacist, settler-colonial regime founded upon the ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population.
Indeed, Israelis have placed themselves in a virtually impossible situation. To taste its bitter essence, Americans might try to imagine what life in their country would be like if the European settlers had not virtually exterminated the indigenous population and if almost half of today's American population were Indians, without basic human rights, impoverished, smoldering with resentment, and visible every day as the inescapable living evidence of the injustice inflicted on their ancestors.
This would not be a pleasant society in which to live. Both colonizers and colonized would be progressively degraded and dehumanized. The colonizers could, rationally, conclude that they could never be forgiven by those they had dispossessed and that no "solution" was imaginable. So it has been, and continues to be, in the lands under Israeli rule.
Perhaps the coming "meeting" or "conference" will be the last gasp of the fruitless pursuit of a separation-based solution. Perhaps those who care about justice and peace and believe in democracy can then find ways to stimulate Israelis to move beyond Zionist ideology toward a more humane, hopeful, and democratic view of present realities and future possibilities.
No one would suggest that the moral, ethical, and intellectual transformation necessary to achieve a decent one-state solution will be easy. However, more and more people now recognize that a decent two-state solution has become impossible.
It is surely time for concerned people everywhere – and particularly for Americans – to imagine a better way, to encourage Israelis to imagine a better way, and to help both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve it. It is surely time to seriously consider democracy and to give it a chance.
• John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of "The World According to Whitbeck."
seriously consider democracy and to give it a chance.
Clint, the State of Israel is not going to buy one-state democracy or two-state solution, but Jews may buy my proposal:
Jews give up the State of Israel with all her weapons including WMDs, in return the EUS recognizes Jews' right to law as an SPEE named the Greater Israel. Jews settle nothing more and nothing less than that.
Grand Sen~or.
A second option would be for Israel to retain the West Bank and expel the Palestinians by force, there preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. A few Israeli extremists have proposed something akin to this, but to expel millions of Palestinians in this fashion would be a crime against humanity. The Palestinians would surely resist being driven from their homes, and such a heinous act would take place in full view of a horrified world and damage Israel's reputation far more than the recent carnage in Gaza did.
But you're forgetting that this is precisely how Israel was founded and not only did the West allow this ethnic cleansing, since then the US has agreed to finance the ethnic cleansing, and apartheid bantustan setup already in the occupied territories.
Is it any wonder that Netanyahu and Lieberman actually believe that ethnic cleansing and apartheid are legitimate solutions to the Palestinian problem?
The ludicrousness of people like Avigdor Lieberman (real name: Evet Lieberman), who is from Moldova, proposing to kick out indigenous inhabitants of the lands (Palestinians) would be mind-bendingly farcical if not for the fact that the fascist was elected.
For a view from the Palestinian side see the article by this Israel knesset member:
"This government, particularly with Lieberman as foreign minister, should be boycotted by the international community, just as it once boycotted Jörg Haider, the late Austrian far-right politician who won global notoriety for his anti-immigrant views.
Lieberman, in one of many outrageous comments, declared in May 2004 that 90 percent of Israel’s Palestinian citizens “have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost.”
But my family and I were on this land centuries before Lieberman arrived here in 1978 from Moldova. We are among the minority who managed to remain when some 700,000 Palestinians were forced out by Israel in 1948."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07iht-edtibi.html?scp=1&sq=israeli%20arab%20knesset&st=cse
Op-Ed Contributor
A Harsh Reality for Palestinians
By AHMAD TIBI
Published: April 6, 2009
JERUSALEM — The right-wing coalition of the new Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not bode well for Palestinians in Israel. With the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, the extremists are going after the indigenous population and threatening us with loyalty tests and the possibility of “transfer” into an area nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s intransigence vis-à-vis Palestinians in the occupied territories is certainly cause for concern. No less concerning is what the Netanyahu-Lieberman combination may mean to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
This government, particularly with Lieberman as foreign minister, should be boycotted by the international community, just as it once boycotted Jörg Haider, the late Austrian far-right politician who won global notoriety for his anti-immigrant views.
Lieberman, in one of many outrageous comments, declared in May 2004 that 90 percent of Israel’s Palestinian citizens “have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost.”
But my family and I were on this land centuries before Lieberman arrived here in 1978 from Moldova. We are among the minority who managed to remain when some 700,000 Palestinians were forced out by Israel in 1948.
Today, Lieberman stokes anti-Palestinian sentiment with his threat of “transfer” — a euphemism for renewed ethnic cleansing. Henry Kissinger, too, has called for a territorial swap, and Lieberman cites Kissinger to give his noxious idea a more sophisticated sheen. Lieberman and Kissinger envision exchanging a portion of Israel for a portion of the occupied West Bank seized illegally by Jewish settlers.
But Israel has no legal right to any of the occupied Palestinian territories. And Lieberman has no right to offer the land my home is on in exchange for incorporating Jewish settlers into newly defined Israeli state borders. We are citizens of the state of Israel and do not want to exchange our second-class citizenship in our homeland — subject as we are to numerous laws that discriminate against us — for life in a Palestinian Bantustan.
We take our citizenship seriously and struggle daily to improve our lot and overcome discriminatory laws and practices.
We face discrimination in all fields of life. Arab citizens are 20 percent of the population, but only 6 percent of the employees in the public sector. Not one Arab employee is working in the central bank of Israel. Imagine if there was not one African-American citizen employed in the central bank of the United States.
Israel is simultaneously running three systems of government. The first is full democracy toward its Jewish citizens — ethnocracy. The second is racial discrimination toward the Palestinian minority — creeping Jim Crowism. And the third is occupation of the Palestinian territories with one set of laws for Palestinians and another for Jewish settlers — apartheid.
A few weeks ago, Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party led the charge in the Israeli Knesset to ban my party — the Arab Movement for Renewal — from participating in the elections. Netanyahu’s Likud also supported the action. The Supreme Court overturned the maneuvers of the politicians. But their attempt to ban our participation should expose Israel’s democracy to the world as fraudulent.
Lieberman’s inveighing against Palestinian citizens of Israel is not new. Less than three years ago, he called for my death and the death of some of my Palestinian Knesset colleagues for daring to meet with democratically elected Palestinian leaders. Speaking before the Knesset plenum, Lieberman stated: “World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in this house.” Lieberman now has the power to put his vile views into practice.
We call for more attention from the Obama administration toward the Palestinian minority in Israel. It is a repressed minority suffering from inadequately shared state resources. The enormous annual American aid package to Israel fails almost entirely to reach our community.
Between Netanyahu and Lieberman, the Obama administration will have its hands full. Make no mistake that Netanyahu and Lieberman will press the new administration hard to accept Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — as well as discriminatory anti-Palestinian actions in Israel itself. Settlements will grow and discrimination deepen. American backbone will be crucial in the months ahead.
Ahmad Tibi is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.
A Political Economic Overview of Zionism
There has to be something wrong with the intellectual environment in the USA when academics do not draw the obvious conclusions from their own scholarship.
As long as the State of Israel and the Israel Lobby continue to exist, not only Palestinians but all Americans outside the Zionist system are under threat: Jewish Financial Aggression, Worldwide Economic Nakba.
But you're forgetting that this is precisely how Israel was founded and not only did the West allow this ethnic cleansing, since then the US has agreed to finance the ethnic cleansing, and apartheid bantustan setup already in the occupied territories.
The large-scale expulsion and migration (back in the 1949 War) happened in an era without widespread television and audiovisual, and when (to put it bluntly) norms were different. This was the immediate post-colonial period, remember? Not to mention it was still in the middle of the Segregation Era in the US, so that made it easy to justify this type of stuff, particularly if the Israelis were "heroic pioneers" like those of American history.
But decades since 1948 - take just the last 15 years since Oslo, for example - over a quarter of a million Jewish immigrants have been settled into the occupied territories. These are Jewish-ONLY settlements - taken from non-Jewish inhabitants, joined by Jewish-ONLY roads. Palestinian roads have check points at every turn, where they are searched and humiliated should they try to leave their ever shrinking non-Jewish bantustans.
This arrangement has become a reality just in the last 15 years, and largely financed by the US. Over 9,000 new Jews were settled into the occupied territories just since Olmert took the reins.
If you're Israeli, why would you believe that Netanyahu and Lieberman's solution is really much different than any of their predecessors? They are merely acknowledging what has been going on all along.
The only difference that I can see is that Netanyahu and Lieberman are vocal about their intentions. The others - all of them - paid lip service to peace out of the left side of their mouth, while they whispered apartheid out of the right side. They spoke peace, they delivered apartheid. And America financed it.
Now Lieberman is pulling back the curtain, and we can see that he's been Oz all along.
Why would the Palestinians want a two state solution?
Given Prof. Walt's analysis, it is even more difficult to see why the Palestinians would want a two state solution. Israel will never agree to a Palestinian state that is more than a glorified bantustan. For perfectly understandable reasons Israel will want to control its borders and limit its armed forces. Israel will also demand the right to intervene on the ground, or from the air, to protect its own security. After seeing what happened to Gaza what Palestinian in their right mind would agree to that? The alternative is to keep stalling for long enough and Israel will cease to exist in a single state solution.
There is no reason for Palestinians to accept a state next to Israel anymore. The land and resources have been seized by Israel, and Palestinians would receive worthless exchanges in return. If Israel had given a state to Arafat early on, they would be in posession of a secure Jewish state today. Ironically, their maximal positions through the years have eliminated(rather than just shrinking) the carrot that they offer, while their need for it to be accepted has grown desperate. Were Begin and Shamir unaware of the impending population bomb? That can be the only explanation.
Were Begin and Shamir unaware of the impending population bomb? That can be the only explanation.
They were aware, but they had a "something will happen to save us" attitude coupled with extremely short-sighted political thinking.
Israel managed to delay the population bomb back at the end of the Cold War when the million or so Russians immigrated there - maybe that's given them over-confidence now.
"And could someone please explain to Netanyahu that a group of devout Muslim clerics aren't likely to fire warheads at a land that contains the third holiest site in Islam?"
And that's stopped Muslims from setting off repeated suicide bombs at the equally sacred shrines and mosques in Najaf (Imam Ali Mosque), Karbala (Shrine of Husayn ibn ‘Al?) , Samarra (Al-Askari Mosque), and in Baghdad (Al-Kadhimiya Mosque)?
Or perhaps he has forgotten about the 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure in Mecca by Juhayman al-Otaibi, or the 1987 riots by Iranian pilgrams?
I guess FP's resident 'realist' prefers the reality down the rabbit hole.
"And could someone please explain to Netanyahu that a group of devout Muslim clerics aren't likely to fire warheads at a land that contains the third holiest site in Islam?"
Yes I'll explain: because if they did that, Israel and U.S. would fire warheads back.
It is called deterrence.
Israel is the only middle east nation with nukes. It started the cycle of stupidity by stealing nuclear material and know how from the US.
Letter in FT re. Iran and Israel and nukes....
....You don't find this in the US press for some reason:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2725a9fc-a467-11dc-a28d-0000779fd2ac.html
We need to overhaul what is a flawed non-proliferation treaty
Published: December 7 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 7 2007 02:00
From Dr Yousaf Mahmood Butt.
Sir, David Miliband (“Why we must not take the pressure off Iran” December 5) is correct to point out that the Iranian uranium enrichment programme remains a concern despite the just-released US National Intelligence Estimate suggesting that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
However, no amount of “diplomacy with teeth” can compensate for what is fundamentally a flaw in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): signatory nations (such as Iran) are allowed by law to enrich uranium – ostensibly for peaceful uses – and thus collect the raw material needed, should they wish, for a bomb.
Instead of the selective application of United Nations sanctions to nations perceived to be unfriendly or unco-operative by the west (eg, No to Iran, Yes to Brazil for uranium enrichment), it would make more sense to overhaul the 1970 NPT; and, while at it, also make sure that the new treaty punishes more aggressively those (predominantly western) nations that do not abide by their arms-reduction obligations in the current NPT.
“If someone asks me to disarm and keep a slingshot while he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do?” Brazillian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said of the NPT; but it could well be said by the Iranian government in reference to Israel, which is openly allowed by the west to stockpile 200 or so nuclear warheads in the region.
It is telling that President Ford, in 1976, encouraged Iran (then under the US-backed shah) to build both uranium enrichment as well as plutonium processing plants. How is it that what was permissible then under the 1970 NPT, has now become forbidden – under the very same treaty – to the point that there are cries for further UN sanctions against Iran?
The answer is to be found in Mr Miliband’s article: we don’t trust Iran and it is not our friend. Unfortunately, if international law is to be taken seriously, it must be blind.
Yousaf Mahmood Butt,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
Cambridge, MA 02138, US
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
"Although lots of other democracies have behaved abominably towards minorities in the past, such behavior is not legitimate in the 21st century."
Really on which earth?
Sudan? Lebanon? Egypt? Iraq? Syria? Turkey? Thailand? Indonesia (East Timor)? Iran itself?
There is a laundry list of states that continue to act horribly towards their minority groups.
But ask yourself this professor, In a world where Gaza must be Jew free, and HAMAS has declared that its ultimate goal is to turn the rest of Israel into the same, how on earth you're going to declare that Israel is the one with the apartheid policy.
...we don't give Iran $3billion per year in aid.
We ACTIVELY SUPPORT Israel acting horribly with its minority.
Get it?
What has Israel done for me lately besides make me a target for terrorists that I should give them my tax dollars?
I want my $$$ back.
The current $3 billion in military is only one item in a list of ways that Israel receives aid from the USA. Total aid, subsidies, etc. per year is probably at least $30 billion. Yet this number really does not capture the level at which Jewish Zionist racists are really ripping off the American people for the total cost of Israel to the USA is well over half the national debt and is probably closer to 75%.
how on earth you're going to declare that Israel is the one with the apartheid policy.
Because it is the one with the Apartheid policy. Israel is the state that is slowly imprisoning the Palestinian inhabitants of the Occupied Territories into strictly bordered and controlled cantons, while treating its own Arab citizens as second-class. That's the very image of Apartheid in the South Africa-style, and regardless of what Hamas is doing, that won't change.
I'm sick of pro-Israel supporters pointing out the bad antics of their neighbors as an excuse for abominable behavior on the part of Israel. Guess what? Israel is not a dictatorship, or a violent militia - they're a so-called first-world democracy. That means you get held to higher standards, particularly if you start making claims that you're some type of bastion of Western Civilization in a dark land of Islam.
This would be the same Roger Cohen that had to later declare that yes, Iran is an 'unfree state', something that Iranians declare is an understatement.
Meanwhile American journalists are being convicted of espionage for buying bottles of wine and placed in a prison notorious for its prisoner abuses, including torturing them to death.
But you're going to use Mr. Cohen as the source to place on a pedestal.
Israel is an "unfree state" if you are a Palestinian in the Israeli concentration camp called Gaza.
Roger Cohen is a hero.
Mandatory reading for Palestine Israel and the US
"The treason of the hawks" by Stephen Walt today, is the most rational description of the alterantives facing those interested in a Middle East solution and should be read and digested by all, particularly the Israelis. Not only does he quote Fred Ickle from his study 'treason of the hawks', an apt description, but he also outlines the rational options available for that part of the world.
In my opinion, going one step further, the people who use all their economic influence through bribery and corruption, and there are no other words for such actions, are just as treasonous and I have stated this many times before. If they live in the US, many with the convenience of dual passports, their actions are not in support of a reasonable solution and even worse, they are not acting in the interests of the US. Free speech is all very well but the underlying basis for having that right is to put forward ideas that are truly in the interests of the country to which you feel you belong. You must make a choice....one or the other. Now there's the rub. So many Jewish people living in the US have the interests of the US as secondary and that is treasonous. Every person of Israeli background should be forced to swear an oath of allegiance to the US. That's the first step. Then all lobby groups who target weak and malleable Senators and Representatives with 'donations' should be charges with corruption and the recipients forced to publicly account for their actions. Then perhaps all the interested parties would be able to vote on such matters affecting the welfare of the Middle East and the US, free from insidious influences, threats and financial incentives. For too long this climate has existed and has now become the norm. It is undemocratic and evil.
While the opportunity exists and it appears acceptable for 'treason' to occur on a daily basis, particularly with the lawmakers in the Congress, the rational analysis by Stephen Walt and all people of good intent are just so many words.
However, I doubt if anyone can add to the analysis from Professor Walt in today's offering. Let us all hope that decent, honest people everywhere use such writings as a basis for some form of agreement and discard the outlandish and one-sided conditions that Netanyahu and his hawks have placed on the continuation of peace talks. He should realise that he is now, in 2009, not talking from a position of strength any more as very few people in the world support Israel and its apartheid, ethnic cleansing policies. More importantly, he is fast losing support from the US as well.
It really is time for Israel to be realistic and to stop using the spectre of Iran as part of their misinformation campaign. The world is tired of their irrational words and warlike actions.
My question is this: What is Netanyahu thinking? Doesn't he realize that time has nearly run out for the two-state solution, and that failure to achieve it is by far the most serious threat facing Israel?
For the same reason you have the refugees from pre-1949 boundaries still fantasizing and talking about the day when they can finally return "home", and demanding it as part of any solution. Fantasies are a powerful thing, especially in that part of the world.
I imagine part of the hope on the Israeli government's part is that if they can constrict the West Bank enough, force the Palestinians there into a situation where they are reduced to utter penury and despair - they'll leave. They'll have to leave, or starve. At the same time, the Israeli government is driven heavily by short-term security concerns, so they're constantly being pushed towards this type of thing.
The two state solution is a fantasy of Americans and Europeans. Americans can't accept that Israel is an armed-camp ready to fight at a moment's notice with anyone and can never change and will never compromise. That's who they are and what they do and no amount of wishful thinking is going to make it otherwise. The Palestinians need a Gandhi more than they need Hamas....Israelis are fueled by a sense of moral superiority and the Palestinians keep playing the same ineffective cards...those stupid rockets coming out of Gaza are pathetic beyond belief.
Gandhi never supported the creation of Israel but his methods might be just what the Palestinians need to turn the tide...at the moment their leaders seem like demented suicidal clowns.
Rather than a sense of moral superiority, Israel is guided by a need for survival at any cost. And it appears that Americans know that.
The palestinians are fueled by this wayward sense of moral superiority which causes them to launch genicidal missles. And their incompetence does not earn them anything from anyone other than fellow Arab fanatics.
Gandhi is a poor name to invoke for this situation.
Rather than a sense of moral superiority, Israel is guided by a need for survival at any cost. And it appears that Americans know that.
For most Israelis, that's the case now. In any case, it's killing the "Jewish state" idea just as quickly as the settler fanatics, in part because it seems like Israel's leaders have a maximum view of the future to the tune of 2-3 years at a time.
Israel was born of terrorism! What goes around......
Here is what Gandhi actually had to say on the question of Zionism and the violent conquest of Palestine -- these are 2 letters from Gandhi written in the 30s and 40s, pre-Israel (citations at the end):
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/53434
[1938]
Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab–Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.
My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.
The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to... [text missing in original]
Can the Jews resist this organized [...] and prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness [and] shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured races including Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanized man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
Jews and Palestine [May 1946]
Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew–Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose. For the same reason I have tried to evade many world events. Without airing my views on them, I have enough irons in the fire. But four lines of a newspaper column have done the trick and evoked a letter from a friend who has sent me a cutting which I would have missed but for the friend drawing my attention to it. It is true that I did say some such thing in the course of a long conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject.[1] I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world. "Ghetto" is, so far as I am aware, the name given to Jewish locations in many parts of Europe. But for their heartless persecution, probably no question of return to Palestine would ever have arisen. The world should have been their home, if only for the sake of their distinguished contribution to it.
But, in my opinion, they have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism. Their citizenship of the world should have and would have made them honoured guests of any country. Their thrift, their varied talent, their great industry should have made them welcome anywhere. It is a blot on the Christian world that they have been singled out, owing to a wrong reading of the New Testament, for prejudice against them."If an individual Jew does a wrong, the whole Jewish world is to blame for it." If an individual Jew like Einstein makes a great discovery or another composes unsurpassable music, the merit goes to the authors and not to the community to which they belong.
No wonder that my sympathy goes out to the Jews in their unenviably sad plight. But one would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine? If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence whose use their best Prophets have taught and which Jesus the Jew who gladly wore the crown of thorns bequeathed to a groaning world, their case would be the world's, and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest. It is twice blessed. It will make them happy and rich in the true sense of the word and it will be a soothing balm to the aching world.
[1] According to the newspaper cutting, Louis Fischer had quoted Gandhi to the effect that the Jews had a good case but he hoped the Arabs too would not be wronged.
* These passages are taken from the Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi (‘319. The Jews’, vol. 74, 9 September 1938 – 29 January 1939, pp. 239-242; and ‘331. Jews and Palestine’, vol. 91, 20 May 1946 – 8 August 1946, pp. 272–273).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
you have it backwards. Israel has no fear of being exterminated by the Palestinians...by the Iranians maybe...but certainly not the Palestinians who are trying to 'survive at any cost'. It's the morally superior aggressor who can make themselves appear as the victim.
Even Americans are smart enough to see that.
I think Gandhi is just what the doctor ordered for the true victims.
Gandhi never supported the creation of Israel but his methods might be just what the Palestinians need to turn the tide.
Maybe. But the israelis aren't like the british in india. THe british maintained a belief that they were good for india, that they were providing stability and order and the sort of governing that indians couldn't do for themselves. So when indians did peaceful protest the british hesitated to mow them down. It didn't fit their self-image.
But israelis could do that.
Arrange a peaceful protest. No media coverage though, because the israelis don't allow it. Then the israelis strafe the protesters, and maybe tanks run over some of them, and the israeli military reports that twice as many rockets came in from gaza as the day before and perhaps mentions that they killed a couple of hamas leaders along with minor collateral damage.
When peaceful protest just gets you killed, and gets no other visible result, it's hard to keep doing it.
George Washington on Israel
“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington Farewell Address
“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Mr. Walt, you're not talking to Israelis.
Israelis want peace, are willing to give up almost all post-1967 territories in order to achieve it, and make their decisions based not on "Greater Israel" ideology but on calculations of national security. So why, Mr. Walt, are you unwilling to address Israelis' concerns? Articles like this one are insulting and infuriating to people who care deeply about the conflict (because they're part of it) and who think about it literally every day. Do you really think that Israelis have not heard these shallow arguments before? Do you think Israelis don't have their own answers to them, and their own further questions?
You consistently refuse even to acknowledge criticisms of your arguments, much less make any effort to address them. I don't think you understand. Israelis want to be persuaded by you. They want to believe that a solution to the conflict involving the evacuation of the Territories is possible. They'd be happy even to be convinced they could evacuate territories without ending the conflict, if they could do so without paying a price in increased attacks and bloodshed. They're waiting to hear somebody on your side actually address their questions and criticisms.
Why don't the occupiers address this behaviour first?
Please see this 60 minutes episode on how the fascist occupiers behave and let's talk in 15 minutes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n
Israelis want peace, are willing to give up almost all post-1967 territories in order to achieve it, and make their decisions based not on "Greater Israel" ideology but on calculations of national security.
Walt's not so sure that Netanyahu means it, considering where he's coming from in Likud - and I don't blame him. For that matter, if it's merely a security concern, then why do Prime Ministers from both parties look the other way when more people migrate to the West Bank and start sucking down subsidies? The roadblocks and special roads, that I can understand, but the additional settlers are just more people that need to be protected, and more people to be re-located when/if the Two-State Solution ever gets off the ground.
I know, it's a political concern and a bone thrown to them, but that's Walt's point - he doesn't think the Israeli leadership is really willing or able to actually part with the West Bank at this point of time, and their tactics for securing it is putting the idea of the "Jewish state" in long-term jeopardy.
Do you really think that Israelis have not heard these shallow arguments before? Do you think Israelis don't have their own answers to them, and their own further questions?
What's so shallow about it? He's criticizing Netanyahu for being in complete public denial over what the consequences of holding on to the West Bank will be for Israel in the long-term, and being evasive towards the only solution that will avoid that short of mass ethnic cleansing. At least Olmert had the balls to say what it would mean - Netanyahu, no doubt to keep his religious party coalition partners in line, has to spout off that "economic peace" bullshit.
They want to believe that a solution to the conflict involving the evacuation of the Territories is possible. They'd be happy even to be convinced they could evacuate territories without ending the conflict, if they could do so without paying a price in increased attacks and bloodshed.
If it's any consolation, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has gotten at least marginally better at keeping public order, considering how . . . understated the reactions were there when the Gaza War happened. You might try actually throwing them a bone in the form of at least going through motions of withdrawing settlers - it's either them, Hamas, or something worse (Al-Qaeda's been trying to get into that neck of the woods for years, remember?).
"To put it bluntly, it is Palestinian wombs and not Iranian bombs that pose the real threat."
Now suppose that someone said that "Black women's wombs are the real threat in the American inner city," or that "It's the Mexican womb that's ruining California." Wouldn't most people consider these statements racist? So can someone please explain why zionism isn't a form of racism?
Arafat made the threat via the Palestinian womb. That being so, it would seem you are of a position that anti-zionism is a form of racism.
Unless you count "Jewish" as a race (and I don't), it's more a type of sectarianism blurring into ethno-religious nationalism, which is why I've never considered Zionism a form a racism.
If you had taken the trouble to actually speak to Israelis and also to listen to Palestinians you might have come to a different conclusion. Who is supposed to setup the Palestinian state? Read the Hamas charter. Nowhere does it say anything about a Palestinian state. It talks about how the Jews are responsible for every calamity known to mankind and the need to wipe out the Jews and establish Islamic rule, but no mention of a Palestinian state. But let's see what is going on in reality. Israel left Gaza more than 2 years ago and what has Hamas done to set up a state? Fire thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian communities, kill anyone opposed to it and beg for charity from the West. And please don't tell me who the "blockade" has prevented them from setting up a state. Israel established itself as a state under much worse conditions.
Most Israelis would love to get rid of the West Bank, they just aren't willing to commit suicide in the process. Meanwhile life goes on here, and the hypocrites in the US living on stolen Native American land in a country built on slave labor, and who have killed tens of thousand of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Europeans living in houses that once belonged to their Jewish neighbors who they helped load into the gas chambers continue to preach to us about what is best for us.
If you had taken the trouble to actually speak to Israelis and also to listen to Palestinians you might have come to a different conclusion. Who is supposed to setup the Palestinian state?
How about the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank? You know, those guys saying silly stuff like "Israel has a right to exist" and trying to keep order even though the Israeli government is constantly undermining their credibility?
And please don't tell me who the "blockade" has prevented them from setting up a state. Israel established itself as a state under much worse conditions.
Don't make me laugh. After the 1949 war, Israel was under no type of international sanctions, had aid from France, was recognized by many countries (including both of the Cold War giants, the Soviet Union and the United States), and had free trade. Are you seriously comparing that to being under a constant blockade with only occasional humanitarian aid coming and the occasional medical patient going out the Israeli side, with the Israeli military occasionally flying in here and there to try and assassinate some Hamas figure?
Israel left Gaza more than 2 years ago and what has Hamas done to set up a state?
I didn't realize states grew on trees, in the absence of functional economies and even reliable sources of water, with the occasional military assassination to spice things up a bit.
Most Israelis would love to get rid of the West Bank, they just aren't willing to commit suicide in the process.
Not enough to stop and/or reverse the flow of settlers heading there, apparently, which is the real killer of the Two-State Solution. Enjoy the Arab state of Isratine in the next fifty years, my friend.
the hypocrites in the US living on stolen Native American land in a country built on slave labor,
Funny, I don't see anyone defending what the US did to the native americans, or to the slaves. Even if there were, that wouldn't excuse what is being done in the West Bank; you don't wipe out one bout of ethnic cleansing and repression with another.
Europeans living in houses that once belonged to their Jewish neighbors who they helped load into the gas chambers continue to preach to us about what is best for us.
Oh, cry me a fucking river. The Holocaust happened sixty-three years ago, which means that most of Europe that is alive today never took part in it, whereas the bullshit that's going on the West Bank is happening now.
Dr. Walt is right as rain, of course. But my worry is the grass-roots majority of American voters who have been indoctinated by Abe Foxman's goon squads throughout America's synagogues to reflexively mistrust anyone like me (who shares Walt's views) as a "Jew-hater". Perhaps the average ill-informed US voter would appreciate the totality of degradation of humanity that bespeaks of today's Israel, when shown one of the "1 shot, 2 kills" T-shirts printed for members of the IDF's Givati Infantry Brigade. The T-shirt depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan "1 shot, 2 kills.". This is a quick and memorable lesson to even the most dull American of the homicidal sickness of Israel. Arab wombs...no problem, just fire away!
Yes, it is a quick lesson that the average Israeli soldier is just like his counterpart in almost every single western style civilization's army. Your vivid opinion does make you seem untrustworthy.
It would seem that the t-shirt is a far healthy adjustment than what occurs in the mind of a typical Arab suicide bomber.
Except that the suicide bomber is fighting for his land which is occupied. (No, Gaza is not "free").
If Israel let the Palestinians have an army and navy and air force and the US funded it for 30 years at >$3b per year, I am sure the nice Palestinians would restrict themselves to bombing just the IDF bases. Probably they would not wear such immoral and stupid T-shirts either.
Alas, they do not have US $ and are not allowed a sovereign territory nor a defense force -- So guess what? They suicide bomb Israel.
They are terrorists: just like the Americans who fought the Brits.
Now you're going to play the Philosemitic advocate for Israel card?
It's clear from your intial Harvard screed - only published in one "academic" journal owned by Chas Freedmad- and subsequent money-banking anti-Israel lobby jackpot - that your interest in Israel stems from its negative impact on US foreign policy - and absolutely nothing more.
So please, don't descend to rhetoric and pretend you care what happens to Israel, if American tax dollars are not involved.
Doesn't he realize that time has nearly run out for the two-state solution, and that failure to achieve it is by far the most serious threat facing Israel?
No he doesn't, because its baloney.
A two state solution is possible if and only if, the Palestinians can themselves create a state. If they want the international community to bestow sovereignty on them, then logically, they cannot give the impression that that sovereignty is but a bullet in their mid-term arsenal to liquidate Israel. They give no other impression at this point. Their Arab, and Islamic backers, Egypt being the single exception, only make things worst.
The threat from Iran, is very real. You've got your Ahmedinejad quotes wrong, not us. What he said, was rather clear. Half the Iranian people, understood it to mean precisely what you call a "misinterpration". He made further quotes, which are clear as day - he is seeking extermination of Israel.
How he treats his Jewish community in Iran, is immaterial. Its a community which has accepted his mandate, and is not very friendly towards Israel. It has no choice, if it wants to survive. It is, what one could call a captive community.
Nuking Israel is not the issue - I'd think an IR expert would be the first to point this out. It's about neutralizing Israel's nuclear advantage. If Israel is then relegated to fighting a protracted conventional war - it's future is zero.
Jerusalem certainly is a third holy sight - but then you seem to know little about Islamic apocalyptics, nor can you parse "exterminate." We've already seen Muslims slaughter Muslims. The Wahabi's regularly destroy mosques in Saudi Wahabia, and some time ago they besieged Mecca - remember that one?
***
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is essential. If that were not the case, why dismantle settlements in Gaza? If Palestinians are not prepared to allow Jews living in their borders, why should Israeli's be expected to compromise their national character, with an Arab fifth column?
The West bank, is not Palestinian territory.
Moving Arabs out of Israel or the West Bank, does not constitute ethnic cleansing, provided it is done in a civil manner, with no casualties. We are talking more about a population exchange, such as between Turkey-Greece, and India-Pakistan. Granted, the latter was unruly, and cost a million lives. But that's not what is being advocated.
***
In the end, Mr. Walt, what you want for Israel, is not what its elected officials want. And I don't see what makes you right, and them wrong.
You are right, only a one-state democratic solution is workable
A decent two-state solution to the 'Palestinian problem' has become impossible.
If this problem is ever to be solved, it must be redefined. Those who truly seek justice and peace in the Middle East must dare to speak openly and honestly of the "Zionism problem" – and then to draw the moral, ethical, and practical conclusions that follow.
When South Africa was under a racial-supremacist, settler-colonial regime, the world recognized that the problem was the ideology and political system of the state. Anyone outside the country who referred to the "black problem" or the "native problem" (or, for that matter, to the "white problem") would instantly have been branded a racist.
The world also recognized that the solution to that problem could not be found either in "separation" (apartheid in Afrikaans) and scattered native reservations (called "independent states" by the South African regime and Bantustans by the rest of the world) or in driving the settler-colonial group in power into the sea. Rather, the solution had to be found – and to almost universal satisfaction was found – in democracy, in white South Africans growing out of their racial-supremacist ideology and political system and accepting that their interests and their children's futures would be best served in a democratic, non-racist state with equal rights for all who live there.
The solution for the land which, until it was literally wiped off the map in 1948, was called Palestine is the same. It can only be democracy.
The ever-receding "political horizon" for a decent two-state solution, which, on the ground, becomes less practical with each passing year of expanding settlements, bypass roads, and walls, is weighed down by a multitude of excruciatingly difficult "final status" issues. Israeli governments have consistently refused to discuss these final-status issues seriously, preferring to postpone them to the end of a road which is never reached – and which, almost certainly, is intended never to be reached.
Just as marriage is vastly less complicated than divorce, democracy is vastly less complicated than partition. A democratic post-Zionist solution would not require any borders to be agreed, any division of Jerusalem, anyone to move from his current home, or any assets to be evaluated and apportioned. Full rights of citizenship would simply be extended to all the surviving natives still living in the country, as happened in the United States in the early 20th century and in South Africa in the late 20th century.
The obstacle to such a simple – and morally unimpeachable – solution is, of course, intellectual and psychological. Traumatized by the Holocaust and perceived insecurity as a Jewish island in an Arab sea, Israelis have immense psychological problems in coming to grips with the practical impossibility of sustaining forever what most of mankind views as a racial-supremacist, settler-colonial regime founded upon the ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population.
Indeed, Israelis have placed themselves in a virtually impossible situation. To taste its bitter essence, Americans might try to imagine what life in their country would be like if the European settlers had not virtually exterminated the indigenous population and if almost half of today's American population were Indians, without basic human rights, impoverished, smoldering with resentment, and visible every day as the inescapable living evidence of the injustice inflicted on their ancestors.
This would not be a pleasant society in which to live. Both colonizers and colonized would be progressively degraded and dehumanized. The colonizers could, rationally, conclude that they could never be forgiven by those they had dispossessed and that no "solution" was imaginable. So it has been, and continues to be, in the lands under Israeli rule.
Perhaps the coming "meeting" or "conference" will be the last gasp of the fruitless pursuit of a separation-based solution. Perhaps those who care about justice and peace and believe in democracy can then find ways to stimulate Israelis to move beyond Zionist ideology toward a more humane, hopeful, and democratic view of present realities and future possibilities.
No one would suggest that the moral, ethical, and intellectual transformation necessary to achieve a decent one-state solution will be easy. However, more and more people now recognize that a decent two-state solution has become impossible.
It is surely time for concerned people everywhere – and particularly for Americans – to imagine a better way, to encourage Israelis to imagine a better way, and to help both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve it. It is surely time to seriously consider democracy and to give it a chance.
This is why 2 state solution will not work -- from 60 minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n
You don't have to imagine what such a scenario is like. You can just look at Northern Ireland. In that case complete breakdown was only averted because the UK government had the power to keep the lid on the conflict between the two communities, and the money to solve some of the problems.
I too believe Democracy is the answer, but I think the Palestinians should run their own. Same goes for Israel's Arab neighbors. Palestinians created the population problem, they deliberately sought to use birth rates to defeat Israel. They were counting on the Moral Supremacism of White American liberals, to make the population bomb go boom.
branded a racist is precisely the problem.
South Africa is a catastrophe, with a minimal white emigration of 25 percent, perhaps as much as 30 percent in the last decade - it has seen white flight on scales which threaten its very survival. And there are no signs of abatement.
South Africa was no doubt an ethnocracy, but let's not reduce everything to white supremacy. White supremacism is gone, and contrary to your rosy scenario - equality is nowhere within reach, nor is there anything of a black middle class - other than in PR releases and lame left-wing news. The reality, is shitty. Sure, you can blame that on white supremacism too - but then, how will that differ from a future Israel with Palestinians?
A two state solution is possible if and only if, the Palestinians can themselves create a state.
You mean between the enclaves the IDF has put them into the West Bank, where their water, land, electricity, movement, and even food can be cut off without any warning? I didn't realize states grew on trees like so much oranges.
They give no other impression at this point. Their Arab, and Islamic backers, Egypt being the single exception, only make things worst.
Don't make me laugh. The Palestinian Authority under Abbas has been saying "We recognize Israel" for years, taking all of the bullshit that the Israeli government has put them through in order to ensure that the settlers get to live a first-world, subsidized existence on land they stole from the neighboring Palestinians, and still trying to do things like law and order among the population therein.
You should be thankful they haven't said "Fuck this shit" and called for a Third Intifada.
he is seeking extermination of Israel.
You mean like every Arab ruler making boasts about their military prowess for the past half century? Touchy, aren't we? Iran also says "death to America!" and burns American flags every year, but we don't get too wound up by it - they've been doing that since Khomeini.
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is essential. If that were not the case, why dismantle settlements in Gaza?
Presumably because the Israeli government didn't want the spectacle of what would happen to those settlers without IDF protection to get on television.
The West bank, is not Palestinian territory.
Yes, it is. It is inhabited largely by people who have been living there for generations on the land, who identify themselves as Palestinians, and who had and have the land under both the current authority and the preceding governments (British and Ottoman).
Moving Arabs out of Israel or the West Bank, does not constitute ethnic cleansing, provided it is done in a civil manner, with no casualties.
You're still effectively forcing them out of Israel and associated Conquered Territories into neighboring Arab states that don't want them, either by force or by making it impossible to live on their land (a less kind person would call it "starving them out"). That's ethnic cleansing, no matter how much bullshit you try to cover it up with.
We are talking more about a population exchange, such as between Turkey-Greece, and India-Pakistan. Granted, the latter was unruly, and cost a million lives. But that's not what is being advocated.
Funny how nobody really thinks the India-Pakistan exchange (with or without the violence) or its result (two states at each others' throats) were good things.
I'm curious, though, as to how you plan to enact this "gentle removal", so to speak, and how you plan on convincing the neighboring areas that you're not trying to force the Palestinians on them.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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