Regarding George Soros, his sober and sophisticated article in the NY Review of Books of April 12, 2007, referenced in Monday’s posting, tells us much about his impressive depth of thinking and values:
I am not a Zionist, nor am I am a practicing Jew, but I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and a deep concern for the survival of Israel. I did not want to provide fodder to the enemies of Israel. ...
But now I have to ask the question: How did Israel become so endangered? I cannot exempt AIPAC from its share of the responsibility. ...
I am not sufficiently engaged in Jewish affairs to be involved in the reform of AIPAC; but I must speak out in favor of the critical process that is at the heart of our open society. I believe that a much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can't make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Some leaders of the Democratic Party have promised to bring about a change of direction but they cannot deliver on that promise until they are able to resist the dictates of AIPAC. Palestine is a place of critical importance where positive change is still possible. Iraq is largely beyond our control; but if we succeeded in settling the Palestinian problem we would be in a much better position to engage in negotiations with Iran and extricate ourselves from Iraq. The need for a peace settlement in Palestine is greater than ever. Both for the sake of Israel and the United States, it is highly desirable that the Saudi peace initiative should succeed; but AIPAC stands in the way. ...
It is up to the American Jewish community itself to rein in the organization that claims to represent it. But this is not possible without first disposing of the most insidious argument put forward by the defenders of the current policies: that the critics of Israel's policies of occupation, control, and repression on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and Gaza engender anti-Semitism.
The opposite is the case. One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it. ...
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Q & A on new dovish ‘Israel Lobby’
We’ve done a short e-mail interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder (along with Daniel Levy) of "J Street," the new dovish Israel lobby and its political action committee, "JStreetPAC." The following are our questions and Jeremy Ben-Ami’s answers in full:
Question: Perhaps a year ago, when stories or rumors started circulating of a new liberal Israel lobby, it was thought to be associated with George Soros. What (if anything) can you say about the role of Soros in your efforts?
Ben-Ami: George Soros is not involved in or funding J Street. J Street is the outgrowth of 18 months of planning and discussion among pro-Israel, pro-peace activists about how best to establish a new political voice on these issues. Some of those discussions did involve Mr. Soros, as was reported at the time. As Mr. Soros himself wrote in the New York Review of Books, he decided that his personal involvement in the launch of such an effort would, on balance, not help the effort so he decided to step out of the discussions.
Question: Wasn't your initial strategy for a two or three-way merger among the Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek V'Shalom? What happened? How do you see your organization dovetailing, cooperating or coexisting with these groups now?
Ben-Ami: J Street is a political effort consisting of a PAC and a 501(c)(4) lobby. The existing pro-Israel, pro-peace groups are 501(c)(3) organizations and cannot organizationally be part of such an effort. However, as individuals and outside of their roles with those organizations, the leaders of all three organizations as well as of Meretz USA, Ameinu, New Israel Fund and other progressive Jewish organizations are members of the Advisory Council for J Street. We are very pleased at the broad support for the creation of J Street among progressive activists on this issue and their recognition that a unified political voice and arm will be an important complement to the work of the existing groups.
Question: In light of the writings of Mearsheimer and Walt on AIPAC and the "Israel Lobby," what would you like to say to progressive Americans about the purpose of your group and how this would impact the political scene?
Ben-Ami: For too long, the loudest voices in the American political and national policy debates when it comes to Israel and the Middle East have belonged to the far right – neoconservatives, right wing American Jewish leaders, and right wing Christian Zionists. These voices do not represent the mainstream of the American Jewish community or reflect its values. J Street will provide the first political voice for progressives on Israel. For the first time, candidates for political office and current office holders will know that there is organized support for sensible, mainstream positions on Israel and the Middle East – backing a two-state solution, opposing further settlement expansion, pursuing diplomatic opportunities to resolve conflicts rather than immediate resort to military options. These aren’t actually left or right positions; they are sensible, smart ways to be pro-Israel and to remain true to the values that the American Jewish community has always promoted of justice and peace for all.
Question: Perhaps a year ago, when stories or rumors started circulating of a new liberal Israel lobby, it was thought to be associated with George Soros. What (if anything) can you say about the role of Soros in your efforts?
Ben-Ami: George Soros is not involved in or funding J Street. J Street is the outgrowth of 18 months of planning and discussion among pro-Israel, pro-peace activists about how best to establish a new political voice on these issues. Some of those discussions did involve Mr. Soros, as was reported at the time. As Mr. Soros himself wrote in the New York Review of Books, he decided that his personal involvement in the launch of such an effort would, on balance, not help the effort so he decided to step out of the discussions.
Question: Wasn't your initial strategy for a two or three-way merger among the Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek V'Shalom? What happened? How do you see your organization dovetailing, cooperating or coexisting with these groups now?
Ben-Ami: J Street is a political effort consisting of a PAC and a 501(c)(4) lobby. The existing pro-Israel, pro-peace groups are 501(c)(3) organizations and cannot organizationally be part of such an effort. However, as individuals and outside of their roles with those organizations, the leaders of all three organizations as well as of Meretz USA, Ameinu, New Israel Fund and other progressive Jewish organizations are members of the Advisory Council for J Street. We are very pleased at the broad support for the creation of J Street among progressive activists on this issue and their recognition that a unified political voice and arm will be an important complement to the work of the existing groups.
Question: In light of the writings of Mearsheimer and Walt on AIPAC and the "Israel Lobby," what would you like to say to progressive Americans about the purpose of your group and how this would impact the political scene?
Ben-Ami: For too long, the loudest voices in the American political and national policy debates when it comes to Israel and the Middle East have belonged to the far right – neoconservatives, right wing American Jewish leaders, and right wing Christian Zionists. These voices do not represent the mainstream of the American Jewish community or reflect its values. J Street will provide the first political voice for progressives on Israel. For the first time, candidates for political office and current office holders will know that there is organized support for sensible, mainstream positions on Israel and the Middle East – backing a two-state solution, opposing further settlement expansion, pursuing diplomatic opportunities to resolve conflicts rather than immediate resort to military options. These aren’t actually left or right positions; they are sensible, smart ways to be pro-Israel and to remain true to the values that the American Jewish community has always promoted of justice and peace for all.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Goldberg on ‘prisoners’ of conflict, Part 2
Jeffrey Goldberg is mostly a dove in our tradition of progressive Zionism. But there is one area of disagreement that I have with him: he holds strongly with the view that the Palestinians proved themselves incapable of making peace with Yasir Arafat as their leader. Hence, he has the same view as Dennis Ross that the breakdown in the peace process was mostly Arafat’s doing. I see the blame as more equitably shouldered by Arafat with Barak and the Clinton administration (including Ross).
The Clinton administration erred badly in publically blaming Arafat (endorsing Barak’s spin) and in not trying harder, sooner, to build upon the potential advances made at Camp David. Camp David need not have been interpreted as a failure at all. If the follow-up summit at Taba had happened earlier than January 2001, there might have been enough time to fashion a reasonable agreement that could have short-circuited or avoided the Intifada and concluded a workable peace.
I don’t write this to excuse Arafat for not doing all he could to squelch the all-consuming and peace-abnegating Intifada that began late in September 2000, but it is important to envision the Palestinians as capable of living in peace with Israel, and on this Goldberg may be too pessimistic in his long, engrossing and melancholic essay, "Unforgiven," in the May issue of The Atlantic.
Goldberg and I are in agreement that Israel missed a golden opportunity for not engaging sincerely and energetically with Mahmoud Abbas after he succeeded Arafat and won an electoral mandate from his people in 2005 to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution (this was a full year before Hamas narrowly won its election in January 2006) . Goldberg and I share the hope that this still may happen, but he has no such expectation.
His article is dramatically heralded on The Atlantic’s cover as "Is Israel Finished?" Goldberg does not answer this question, but neither he nor The Atalantic mean to be malicious in posing it. Perhaps his view is best summed up from his conversation with the historian, Benny Morris, when the latter says that even though Israel has been an enormous success, it simultaneously has come to a point where it’s future existence is in doubt.
Goldberg writes of the travails of novelist and dovish activist David Grossman, whose son was killed as a tank soldier in Israel’s last-ditch ground offensive during the final days of the 2006 Lebanon war. He used to be socially friendly with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but has refused to talk with him since this tragedy. Curiously, Olmert dispatched Avrum Burg– the former prominent Labor dove and Zionist leader who has recently become a focus for controversy with his acerbic post-Zionist book, "Defeating Hitler"– to plead with Grossman to allow Olmert to visit him.
The notion that Olmert is so close personally with Burg and Grossman is a revelation. This also indicates that despite what people may think of Burg, he remains very much an Israeli in his being and he retains a sense of solidarity with his countrymen.
The Clinton administration erred badly in publically blaming Arafat (endorsing Barak’s spin) and in not trying harder, sooner, to build upon the potential advances made at Camp David. Camp David need not have been interpreted as a failure at all. If the follow-up summit at Taba had happened earlier than January 2001, there might have been enough time to fashion a reasonable agreement that could have short-circuited or avoided the Intifada and concluded a workable peace.
I don’t write this to excuse Arafat for not doing all he could to squelch the all-consuming and peace-abnegating Intifada that began late in September 2000, but it is important to envision the Palestinians as capable of living in peace with Israel, and on this Goldberg may be too pessimistic in his long, engrossing and melancholic essay, "Unforgiven," in the May issue of The Atlantic.
Goldberg and I are in agreement that Israel missed a golden opportunity for not engaging sincerely and energetically with Mahmoud Abbas after he succeeded Arafat and won an electoral mandate from his people in 2005 to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution (this was a full year before Hamas narrowly won its election in January 2006) . Goldberg and I share the hope that this still may happen, but he has no such expectation.
His article is dramatically heralded on The Atlantic’s cover as "Is Israel Finished?" Goldberg does not answer this question, but neither he nor The Atalantic mean to be malicious in posing it. Perhaps his view is best summed up from his conversation with the historian, Benny Morris, when the latter says that even though Israel has been an enormous success, it simultaneously has come to a point where it’s future existence is in doubt.
Goldberg writes of the travails of novelist and dovish activist David Grossman, whose son was killed as a tank soldier in Israel’s last-ditch ground offensive during the final days of the 2006 Lebanon war. He used to be socially friendly with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but has refused to talk with him since this tragedy. Curiously, Olmert dispatched Avrum Burg– the former prominent Labor dove and Zionist leader who has recently become a focus for controversy with his acerbic post-Zionist book, "Defeating Hitler"– to plead with Grossman to allow Olmert to visit him.
The notion that Olmert is so close personally with Burg and Grossman is a revelation. This also indicates that despite what people may think of Burg, he remains very much an Israeli in his being and he retains a sense of solidarity with his countrymen.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Jeffrey Goldberg on ‘prisoners’ of conflict
A couple of months ago, my Upper West Side New York synagogue did something unusual in sponsoring a journalist as its Shabbat "scholar-in-residence." Jeffrey Goldberg, currently a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, has worked for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, as well as other publications, and is the author of "PRISONERS: A Muslim & A Jew Across The Middle East Divide."
He’s a very engaging and entertaining speaker, as well as an accomplished writer. His two talks at Congregation Ansche Chesed were on Israel and his involvement with it, his favorite subject. He made aliya in the 1980s as a young Zionist who used to attend the Hashomer Hatzair summer camp, Shomria, in New York’s Catskill Mountains. His book is about the relationships he cultivated with Palestinian prisoners he guarded in Ketziot prison during his time as a soldier in the IDF during the first Intifada.
He built upon these relationships years later when he returned as an American correspondent to Israel and the occupied territories, having gotten to know some individuals who later rose to prominence in Fatah and Hamas. In the course of his journalism, Goldberg was briefly held captive twice by armed groups in the Gaza Strip; since he once was an Israeli soldier, he is very lucky to be alive. (It struck me that his courage turned to foolhardiness in placing himself in a position to be kidnapped twice.)
A particularly powerful and disturbing story he told contrasts his visits to the homes of a Hamas leader and that of a Fatah official — both in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas activist related with pride that his adolescent son aspires to be a "shahid," a martyr, by which he means a suicide bomber. The Fatah official spoke earnestly with Goldberg about how he struggles against his son’s aspiration for death in such a mission.
Sadly, suicide-bombers and "shahids" in general have become rock stars for many, if not most, Palestinian youngsters in the territories. There is a veritable culture of martyrdom which is promoted in this society, with a viritual industry of posters, videos and bios making them into celebrities. Clearly, many or most Palestinians see this as a form of "resistance" to real oppression, but it only promises more death and destruction, not true liberation, which can only come in the form of a negotiated peace agreement with Israel. Click for Part 2 ...
He’s a very engaging and entertaining speaker, as well as an accomplished writer. His two talks at Congregation Ansche Chesed were on Israel and his involvement with it, his favorite subject. He made aliya in the 1980s as a young Zionist who used to attend the Hashomer Hatzair summer camp, Shomria, in New York’s Catskill Mountains. His book is about the relationships he cultivated with Palestinian prisoners he guarded in Ketziot prison during his time as a soldier in the IDF during the first Intifada.
He built upon these relationships years later when he returned as an American correspondent to Israel and the occupied territories, having gotten to know some individuals who later rose to prominence in Fatah and Hamas. In the course of his journalism, Goldberg was briefly held captive twice by armed groups in the Gaza Strip; since he once was an Israeli soldier, he is very lucky to be alive. (It struck me that his courage turned to foolhardiness in placing himself in a position to be kidnapped twice.)
A particularly powerful and disturbing story he told contrasts his visits to the homes of a Hamas leader and that of a Fatah official — both in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas activist related with pride that his adolescent son aspires to be a "shahid," a martyr, by which he means a suicide bomber. The Fatah official spoke earnestly with Goldberg about how he struggles against his son’s aspiration for death in such a mission.
Sadly, suicide-bombers and "shahids" in general have become rock stars for many, if not most, Palestinian youngsters in the territories. There is a veritable culture of martyrdom which is promoted in this society, with a viritual industry of posters, videos and bios making them into celebrities. Clearly, many or most Palestinians see this as a form of "resistance" to real oppression, but it only promises more death and destruction, not true liberation, which can only come in the form of a negotiated peace agreement with Israel. Click for Part 2 ...
Monday, April 21, 2008
Passover and Hamas
Our friend and colleague, Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, sent the following message on his visit with relatives for the Passover seder at Kibbutz Hatzor:
"I am happy to report from the frontlines of Kibbutz Hatzor that they still have a very vibrant kibbutz seder in the cheder ochel (dining room), with their own kibbutz Hagaddah, lovely performances, shira b'tzibur (community singing) and their own very unique way of ending the seder. The 5th grade class chosen to perform 'Had Gadya' goes through the entire imaginative choreography, and then...they do it again. No one seems to know why, but it's a tradition. They even have an Em Haseder (mother of the seder) who runs things, and the seder was opened by a musical call played not by a bugle or a shofar, but a French Horn. They add their own interpretations of things, and also included Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem the Golden) and the Hebrew version of Shlach Na Et Ami (Let My People Go), which we never did at Barkai [the kibbutz where Hillel once lived].
"I was particularly impressed by the interpretation given to the 3rd cup of wine, when the blesser added that we should not rejoice that "Pharoah's army got drounded" in the sea, since we should feel empathy for the losses of the enemy who are also human beings. She added that God commanded us not to rejoice at the losses of the enemy. The seder even included a very sharp philiton (satirical, rhymed commentary?) which contained barbs about the elements of privatization that the kibbutz has undergone, while still maintaining its strong sense of community."
It’s part of the teachings and ritual of Passover that we do not rejoice at the suffering of our enemies. I have this in mind when I think of what’s going on in and near the Gaza Strip. Hamas is a particularly difficult enemy that has apparently escalated from random rocket attacks into Israel to shooting civilians and soldiers directly along the border.
These attacks appear to be cynical efforts to disrupt the supply of fuel from Israel into Gaza, abetting the humanitarian disaster that they decry. Such attacks further goad Israel into unwisely hardening its blockade and launching counterattacks. Under these circumstances, a cease-fire is absolutely necessary but hard to envision. The latest word from Damascus that Hamas might offer a long-term truce (but not peace) in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem seems more a propaganda ploy than a serious proposal. Is the demand that one side make an enormous concession, which would normally come in the give-and-take of negotiations, meant to be taken seriously?
If you read the article, as opposed to the headline, the NY Times report on what Pres. Carter has claimed to achieve in Syria is far from encouraging. The layering of complicated conditions would mean, in effect, a capitulation to Hamas, with a referendum including the participation of Palestinians outside of the territories likely to result in a demand for an unlimited Palestinian "right of return" to Israel. -- R. Seliger
"I am happy to report from the frontlines of Kibbutz Hatzor that they still have a very vibrant kibbutz seder in the cheder ochel (dining room), with their own kibbutz Hagaddah, lovely performances, shira b'tzibur (community singing) and their own very unique way of ending the seder. The 5th grade class chosen to perform 'Had Gadya' goes through the entire imaginative choreography, and then...they do it again. No one seems to know why, but it's a tradition. They even have an Em Haseder (mother of the seder) who runs things, and the seder was opened by a musical call played not by a bugle or a shofar, but a French Horn. They add their own interpretations of things, and also included Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem the Golden) and the Hebrew version of Shlach Na Et Ami (Let My People Go), which we never did at Barkai [the kibbutz where Hillel once lived].
"I was particularly impressed by the interpretation given to the 3rd cup of wine, when the blesser added that we should not rejoice that "Pharoah's army got drounded" in the sea, since we should feel empathy for the losses of the enemy who are also human beings. She added that God commanded us not to rejoice at the losses of the enemy. The seder even included a very sharp philiton (satirical, rhymed commentary?) which contained barbs about the elements of privatization that the kibbutz has undergone, while still maintaining its strong sense of community."
It’s part of the teachings and ritual of Passover that we do not rejoice at the suffering of our enemies. I have this in mind when I think of what’s going on in and near the Gaza Strip. Hamas is a particularly difficult enemy that has apparently escalated from random rocket attacks into Israel to shooting civilians and soldiers directly along the border.
These attacks appear to be cynical efforts to disrupt the supply of fuel from Israel into Gaza, abetting the humanitarian disaster that they decry. Such attacks further goad Israel into unwisely hardening its blockade and launching counterattacks. Under these circumstances, a cease-fire is absolutely necessary but hard to envision. The latest word from Damascus that Hamas might offer a long-term truce (but not peace) in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem seems more a propaganda ploy than a serious proposal. Is the demand that one side make an enormous concession, which would normally come in the give-and-take of negotiations, meant to be taken seriously?
If you read the article, as opposed to the headline, the NY Times report on what Pres. Carter has claimed to achieve in Syria is far from encouraging. The layering of complicated conditions would mean, in effect, a capitulation to Hamas, with a referendum including the participation of Palestinians outside of the territories likely to result in a demand for an unlimited Palestinian "right of return" to Israel. -- R. Seliger
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Chazan on civil rights; Letter to Hamas
Naomi Chazan Speaks about Civil Rights in Israel @ 60
On Sunday, March 30, 2008, Prof. Naomi Chazan, a three-term Member of Knesset for Meretz (1992-2003) and current President of the Meretz Party Convention, discussed civil rights in the state of Israel, 60 years after its creation. In general, Prof. Chazan noted, Israel, like all other democracies, must work to bridge the gap between principles and reality. Israel has made tremendous progress on some civil rights issues over the last sixty years, she said, but in other areas it has accomplished too little. Prof. Chazan chose to focus on three areas still needing attention: equality, social justice, and religious pluralism.
Click here to read the full summary of Prof. Chazan's remarks.
Young Meretz to Hamas' Khaled Mashaal: "Recognize Israel. Release Shalit."
On Wednesday, April 16, the chairman of Young Meretz, Uri Zaki, met with former President Jimmy Carter, who is now visiting Israel. Zaki gave Mr. Carter a letter to deliver to Hamas' Political Bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal, with whom the ex-President is expected to meet this weekend in Damascus. The letter includes the following remarks:
Zaki told reporters that, "it is time to launch a dialogue with Hamas in order to bring back Gilad Shalit, stop the Qassam rocket fire and bring about a solution of two states for two peoples." He noted that he would be willing to meet with Mashaal at any time, explaining: "I'm not certain that Hamas is a possible partner for dialogue, but I'm not certain that it isn't, so we have to lead a bold effort to clarify this issue." For coverage in YNet, click here.
Read also the Washington Post's cautious editorial and an op-ed in that day's edition by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the Hamas foreign minister.
On Sunday, March 30, 2008, Prof. Naomi Chazan, a three-term Member of Knesset for Meretz (1992-2003) and current President of the Meretz Party Convention, discussed civil rights in the state of Israel, 60 years after its creation. In general, Prof. Chazan noted, Israel, like all other democracies, must work to bridge the gap between principles and reality. Israel has made tremendous progress on some civil rights issues over the last sixty years, she said, but in other areas it has accomplished too little. Prof. Chazan chose to focus on three areas still needing attention: equality, social justice, and religious pluralism.
Click here to read the full summary of Prof. Chazan's remarks.
Young Meretz to Hamas' Khaled Mashaal: "Recognize Israel. Release Shalit."
On Wednesday, April 16, the chairman of Young Meretz, Uri Zaki, met with former President Jimmy Carter, who is now visiting Israel. Zaki gave Mr. Carter a letter to deliver to Hamas' Political Bureau chief, Khaled Mashaal, with whom the ex-President is expected to meet this weekend in Damascus. The letter includes the following remarks:
We in Young Meretz were encouraged by your recent declaration that Hamas'
political goal is a Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967 borders. We regard
this as a milestone that ought to be taken seriously by both Israel and the
international community, and we hope that you will take another bold step and
lead the way to Hamas' recognition of the State of Israel. Such a decision could
pave the way to a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. ...
Both the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian terror have failed. The
only solution is a common recognition of the fact that both nations are here to
stay and must therefore develop a normal relationship. ...
We call upon you to release the abducted soldier, Gilad Shalit. His release
will be a clear sign that just as the Hamas can be a tough enemy, it can be a
proper partner for dialogue. Shalit's release can be a catalyst for a long-term
cease-fire that will free the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israelis in the
western Negev from the living hell that they've been in.
Zaki told reporters that, "it is time to launch a dialogue with Hamas in order to bring back Gilad Shalit, stop the Qassam rocket fire and bring about a solution of two states for two peoples." He noted that he would be willing to meet with Mashaal at any time, explaining: "I'm not certain that Hamas is a possible partner for dialogue, but I'm not certain that it isn't, so we have to lead a bold effort to clarify this issue." For coverage in YNet, click here.
Read also the Washington Post's cautious editorial and an op-ed in that day's edition by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the Hamas foreign minister.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Mathematics of Peace
I emerged from Meretz USA’s April 14 teleconference with MK Chaim Oron, the Meretz-Yahad party’s newly elected leader, with a frustrating sense of stalemate, even while still hoping for a breakthrough in negotiations. Chaim Oron’s most high-profile contribution in this process has been as a liaison to imprisoned Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, whose release he champions in the belief that Barghouti can rally Palestinians toward a peaceful two-state solution.
The glaring contradiction between the Olmert government's stated commitment to peace and its actions on the ground is terrible, but it's based on a structural flaw in Israel's electoral system – its extreme form of proportional representation. No ruling party has ever had an outright majority in the Knesset; this forces them to rely on small minority parties for a majority coalition. The situation has gotten worse in recent years, with a proliferation of small parties, with narrow interests, increasingly paralyzing government.
When I last counted (if I remember correctly), among the Knesset's 120 members are 11 competing electoral blocs and 17 distinct political parties. The current Kadima ruling party has a record weak representation of 29 members, currently allying with three other parties for its majority, including a Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party (Shas) that is forcing Olmert to expand housing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. For the most part, these particular West Bank areas are likely to be retained by Israel in a final peace agreement to include a territorial exchange with the Palestinian Authority, but this has to be mutually agreed upon; it shouldn't simply be asserted and acted upon unilaterally. Besides, Israel is violating its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.
Still, even our very dovish and acerbic sources in Washington and Jerusalem (such as Daniel Levy and Akiva Eldar -- see the latter’s Haaretz column, “Talking Like Meretz, Behaving Like Likud" ) believe that Olmert may be sincere in his desire to reach a peace agreement but is cowed by political circumstances. According to recent trends in the opinion polls, most Israelis now distrust a major withdrawal from the West Bank because of the ongoing attacks from Gaza (especially when supplemented with the memory of Hezbollah's attacks in 2006), even though they favor such action in principle.
Think about this by way of analogy: if the US were next door to Vietnam or to Iraq, we'd probably still be in Vietnam and we'd never get out of Iraq. This is precisely Israel's situation with regard to the West Bank, especially since its total withdrawal from Gaza has not bought it a day of peace.
We and our friends in Israel believe that a different arithmetic of coalition building can get to a small majority that would support the agreement we want for peace – one including the support of the Meretz party plus three Israeli-Arab parties – but this would take a boldness and courage that is not characteristic of Olmert. And then the people of Israel would have to be convinced that such an agreement with the Palestinians would work – not an easy sell given recent history– and they would have to endorse this in a new election.
The glaring contradiction between the Olmert government's stated commitment to peace and its actions on the ground is terrible, but it's based on a structural flaw in Israel's electoral system – its extreme form of proportional representation. No ruling party has ever had an outright majority in the Knesset; this forces them to rely on small minority parties for a majority coalition. The situation has gotten worse in recent years, with a proliferation of small parties, with narrow interests, increasingly paralyzing government.
When I last counted (if I remember correctly), among the Knesset's 120 members are 11 competing electoral blocs and 17 distinct political parties. The current Kadima ruling party has a record weak representation of 29 members, currently allying with three other parties for its majority, including a Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party (Shas) that is forcing Olmert to expand housing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. For the most part, these particular West Bank areas are likely to be retained by Israel in a final peace agreement to include a territorial exchange with the Palestinian Authority, but this has to be mutually agreed upon; it shouldn't simply be asserted and acted upon unilaterally. Besides, Israel is violating its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.
Still, even our very dovish and acerbic sources in Washington and Jerusalem (such as Daniel Levy and Akiva Eldar -- see the latter’s Haaretz column, “Talking Like Meretz, Behaving Like Likud" ) believe that Olmert may be sincere in his desire to reach a peace agreement but is cowed by political circumstances. According to recent trends in the opinion polls, most Israelis now distrust a major withdrawal from the West Bank because of the ongoing attacks from Gaza (especially when supplemented with the memory of Hezbollah's attacks in 2006), even though they favor such action in principle.
Think about this by way of analogy: if the US were next door to Vietnam or to Iraq, we'd probably still be in Vietnam and we'd never get out of Iraq. This is precisely Israel's situation with regard to the West Bank, especially since its total withdrawal from Gaza has not bought it a day of peace.
We and our friends in Israel believe that a different arithmetic of coalition building can get to a small majority that would support the agreement we want for peace – one including the support of the Meretz party plus three Israeli-Arab parties – but this would take a boldness and courage that is not characteristic of Olmert. And then the people of Israel would have to be convinced that such an agreement with the Palestinians would work – not an easy sell given recent history– and they would have to endorse this in a new election.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Avraham Burg Controversy
A journalist friend of Meretz USA, Doug Chandler, reported on an appearance by Avraham Burg in New York the other week. I first saw Burg -- the son of the late National Religious Party leader and perennial government minister, Yosef Burg -- being interviewed on Israeli television as a leader of Peace Now in the early 1980s. He was young, charismatic, impassioned and unusual as a peacenik who was also a kippa-wearing Orthodox Jew.
I've had the experience of seeing him in person in the mid to late '90s when he chaired the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency and I attended the World Zionist Congress. His deep monotone in moderately-accented English and his large frame reminded me of an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie character intoning, "I'll be back." A few years later, he came very close to winning the chairmanship of the Labor party -- so close that he was initially declared the victor and therefore almost a contender for prime minister.
A year or two after that, he wrote an opinion article that became a widely quoted moral outcry against the excesses and failings of the Israeli government (then headed by Ariel Sharon). This soon became twinned with a somewhat less publicized article addressing the moral failings of the Palestinian national movement and appealing for peace. At around that time, he resigned from public service. He was falsely rumored to have moved to France. An interview with him in Haaretz a couple of years ago created a sensation in challenging his views, seen by many, including some Israeli liberals, as increasingly anti-Israel. His recent book, "Defeating Hitler," has only reinforced that impression for many.
Doug Chandler describes his appearance about two weeks ago before a Zionist audience in part as follows:
The Holocaust -- and not only what the Nazis did, but the complicity of so many others, either as allies and active collaborators assisting the genocide (true occasionally even of anti-Nazi forces, such as some right-wing Polish fighters) or of the relative indifference of the US and others of the Allied powers -- is still a living memory. Critics and activists working to change Israeli policies on behalf of the Palestinians, if they have any concern for being fair and effective, need to keep this trauma in mind in what they say or do, rather than simply to viilify Israel -- and especially not to liken Israelis and "Zionists" to the Nazis.
Burg has something of the Biblical prophet in his moral pronouncements, but like most of them, he's also infuriating in some of what he says. I've given you the most reasonable of his statements.
I've had the experience of seeing him in person in the mid to late '90s when he chaired the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency and I attended the World Zionist Congress. His deep monotone in moderately-accented English and his large frame reminded me of an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie character intoning, "I'll be back." A few years later, he came very close to winning the chairmanship of the Labor party -- so close that he was initially declared the victor and therefore almost a contender for prime minister.
A year or two after that, he wrote an opinion article that became a widely quoted moral outcry against the excesses and failings of the Israeli government (then headed by Ariel Sharon). This soon became twinned with a somewhat less publicized article addressing the moral failings of the Palestinian national movement and appealing for peace. At around that time, he resigned from public service. He was falsely rumored to have moved to France. An interview with him in Haaretz a couple of years ago created a sensation in challenging his views, seen by many, including some Israeli liberals, as increasingly anti-Israel. His recent book, "Defeating Hitler," has only reinforced that impression for many.
Doug Chandler describes his appearance about two weeks ago before a Zionist audience in part as follows:
Making his first New York appearance since the book's publication in Hebrew last June, Burg told his audience that the Holocaust plays such a dominant andAside from Doug's piece in the NY Jewish Week, Doug and I recommend a short blog posting by a reporter for the JTA. My take away so far is that Burg's right that Israelis and Jews by in large are still traumatized by the Holocaust and that this impacts upon policies and views in unhealthy ways, but you don't treat trauma by yelling at people to "get over it," which is essentially what he's doing.
traumatic role in Israeli life that it "nihilates" other moral considerations.
If nothing else can compare to the absolute evil of the Holocaust, he continued,
it becomes much easier to legitimize many other actions, like the occupation,
and to move moral boundaries.
As to the approach he would take, Burg said that rather than set aside a separate day each year to recall the Holocaust, as Israelis do now, they should do so on Tisha b'Av, the day on which Jews commemorate a host of catastrophes. "I don't believe the Holocaust, as traumatic as it is, requires a different day," he said.
He suggested, as he has in the past, that Zionism is finished, likening the movement to "a chapter in a book" and referring to it in the past tense.
The movement played a role, rescuing Jews and creating a state, said Burg, who once chaired the Jewish Agency for Israel, the quasi-governmental agency responsible for
immigration and absorption. But "now that the structure is in place," he asked,
"do we need the scaffolding?"
At other points, he said he would revise Israel's Law of Return, granting citizenship only to those Jews who need rescue, and he considers aliyah a thing of the past, good for certain individuals, but not for the collective. "I don't see - and, if you ask me, I don't want to see - the majority of Jews coming to live in Israel," Burg added, calling himself happy with the current situation, in which the majority of Jews lead comfortable lives in the world's democracies. ...
The Holocaust -- and not only what the Nazis did, but the complicity of so many others, either as allies and active collaborators assisting the genocide (true occasionally even of anti-Nazi forces, such as some right-wing Polish fighters) or of the relative indifference of the US and others of the Allied powers -- is still a living memory. Critics and activists working to change Israeli policies on behalf of the Palestinians, if they have any concern for being fair and effective, need to keep this trauma in mind in what they say or do, rather than simply to viilify Israel -- and especially not to liken Israelis and "Zionists" to the Nazis.
Burg has something of the Biblical prophet in his moral pronouncements, but like most of them, he's also infuriating in some of what he says. I've given you the most reasonable of his statements.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Report from Israeli-Palestinian Academic Conference
Dr. Moises Salinas, chairman of the recent Pathways to Peace conference, provided us with this summary of the event:
With the support of Meretz USA, the Jewish Academic Network for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (JANIP) sponsored the First International Academic Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: Pathways to Peace. The Conference took place on March 28-29 at Central Connecticut State University and was co-sponsored by the American Task Force on Palestine and the Geneva Initiative North America. It featured top-level keynote speakers Herbert Kelman, Naomi Chazan, Stephen P. Cohen, Sami Adwan, Daniel Levy, Gaith al Omari, and Saliba Sarsar, as well as over 36 other presenters.
The conference concluded with a summary of some of the recurring ideas, and out-of-the-box suggestions for follow up:
1. We cannot ignore the human element. As many of the presenters stressed, this is not only a conflict about political issues, or even about abstract issues like justice or safety. This is a conflict about real people who are driven by real emotions -- fear, hatred, perceptions of injustice, prejudice. It is also a conflict with an enormous human toll -- psychological, physical, and economic. It is important to frame our discussions in a way that recognizes the human element on both sides. Some presentations stressed how involving Arab-Israelis in the process can be an important step in achieving that goal.
2. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel. Increasingly, people regard the conflict as intractable, and terms such as "conflict management" become more commonplace, instead of conflict resolution. If people don't see a clear, achievable end to the conflict, frustration and helplessness take over, and the willingness to work towards resolution is diminished. As Dr. Dennis Fox wrote, many Palestinians might have shied away from the conference because they are frustrated about efforts that lead nowhere and don't recognize their plight. As Dr. Kelman suggested, there has to be a clear vision of where we are going even while we figure out how to get there.
3. We have to help Israelis get out of their complacency. The brilliant presentation by Naomi Chazan summarized it well: Israelis don't realize (or don't want to think about) the fact that the current situation is untenable and that failure to achieve a solution in the near future will lead to the end of the State of Israel as we know it. While most Israelis live now without day-to-day fear and a preoccupation on the conflict, as frustration mounts, Israel will be under pressure to take even more drastic actions against the Palestinians. Many of the presentations showed how public opinion in the world, even Jewish public opinion in the U.S., is shifting and support for Israel is eroding. It is becoming harder to defend Israel rationally against accusations of racism and apartheid, and to advocate a two-state solution. It is a matter of time until Israel becomes more isolated, as well as more theocratic and militaristic. Dr. Chazan even ventured that Israelis might need to be "frightened" into understanding that a path that does not lead to peace only leads to a Jewish theocratic Middle East state instead of our vision of a western democracy.
The next step is to brainstorm about what we can do with those ideas so we can translate some of them into practice. We will certainly continue our efforts with a follow-up to the conference, by publishing the proceedings, and establishing a list-serve to continue communicating. We will also be using the JANIP Web site as a platform to continue the dialogue and spread new ideas.
With the support of Meretz USA, the Jewish Academic Network for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (JANIP) sponsored the First International Academic Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: Pathways to Peace. The Conference took place on March 28-29 at Central Connecticut State University and was co-sponsored by the American Task Force on Palestine and the Geneva Initiative North America. It featured top-level keynote speakers Herbert Kelman, Naomi Chazan, Stephen P. Cohen, Sami Adwan, Daniel Levy, Gaith al Omari, and Saliba Sarsar, as well as over 36 other presenters.
The conference concluded with a summary of some of the recurring ideas, and out-of-the-box suggestions for follow up:
1. We cannot ignore the human element. As many of the presenters stressed, this is not only a conflict about political issues, or even about abstract issues like justice or safety. This is a conflict about real people who are driven by real emotions -- fear, hatred, perceptions of injustice, prejudice. It is also a conflict with an enormous human toll -- psychological, physical, and economic. It is important to frame our discussions in a way that recognizes the human element on both sides. Some presentations stressed how involving Arab-Israelis in the process can be an important step in achieving that goal.
2. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel. Increasingly, people regard the conflict as intractable, and terms such as "conflict management" become more commonplace, instead of conflict resolution. If people don't see a clear, achievable end to the conflict, frustration and helplessness take over, and the willingness to work towards resolution is diminished. As Dr. Dennis Fox wrote, many Palestinians might have shied away from the conference because they are frustrated about efforts that lead nowhere and don't recognize their plight. As Dr. Kelman suggested, there has to be a clear vision of where we are going even while we figure out how to get there.
3. We have to help Israelis get out of their complacency. The brilliant presentation by Naomi Chazan summarized it well: Israelis don't realize (or don't want to think about) the fact that the current situation is untenable and that failure to achieve a solution in the near future will lead to the end of the State of Israel as we know it. While most Israelis live now without day-to-day fear and a preoccupation on the conflict, as frustration mounts, Israel will be under pressure to take even more drastic actions against the Palestinians. Many of the presentations showed how public opinion in the world, even Jewish public opinion in the U.S., is shifting and support for Israel is eroding. It is becoming harder to defend Israel rationally against accusations of racism and apartheid, and to advocate a two-state solution. It is a matter of time until Israel becomes more isolated, as well as more theocratic and militaristic. Dr. Chazan even ventured that Israelis might need to be "frightened" into understanding that a path that does not lead to peace only leads to a Jewish theocratic Middle East state instead of our vision of a western democracy.
The next step is to brainstorm about what we can do with those ideas so we can translate some of them into practice. We will certainly continue our efforts with a follow-up to the conference, by publishing the proceedings, and establishing a list-serve to continue communicating. We will also be using the JANIP Web site as a platform to continue the dialogue and spread new ideas.
Monday, April 07, 2008
One-State Solution Means No Solution, Part 2
Today, one-state supporters comprise mostly Palestinians, but also a handful of Israelis and Diaspora Jews. Many of the key advocates – including Ghada Karmi, Ilan Pappe, Ali Abuminah, Joseph Masad and Nur Masalha – joined together in a conference held in London in November 2007 (Challenging the Boundaries 2007). Some supporters of this notion claim to be former supporters of two states who are disillusioned with the lack of progress towards a Palestinian State (Loewenstein 2007: xxviii). However, most appear to be long-time supporters of a Greater Palestine whose principal agenda is not equal rights for both peoples, but rather the elimination of the State of Israel.
A number of the London conference presenters are closely associated with calls for an academic boycott of Israel, which I have described elsewhere as based on a racial or ethnic stereotyping of all Israeli Jews – and all Israeli academics in particular – as an oppressor people (Mendes 2006). In my opinion, this group appear to be using the bi-national argument as a mere ruse to put a humanitarian face on what is an ethnocentric and even openly genocidal proposal. The political strategy is to simplistically limit the options for conflict resolution to either a Greater Israel which is likely to become a pariah state due to denying national and civil rights to the Palestinians despite their demographic majority, or one unified state which will inevitably become a Greater Palestine due to the higher Palestinian birthrate. The two-state solution, which would respect the national rights of both peoples, is conveniently rejected.
Nevertheless, two recent books have expounded the one-state solution in significant detail, and deserve to be examined on their merits. The first text by US scholar Virginia Tilley (2005) argues that there are overwhelming territorial and political barriers to any two-state solution. She claims that Jewish settlements have removed the territorial basis for a viable Palestinian state. Any Palestinian entity carved out of the remaining enclaves would be "little more than a sealed vessel of growing poverty and demoralization," and almost certainly a source of ongoing anger, political instability and violence (p. 5).
In addition, Tilley claims that it is inconceivable that any Israeli Government would have the political will to dismantle the settlements. She notes that the settlements have prospered because they have enjoyed the ongoing patronage of Jewish national institutions such as the Jewish National Fund and all Israeli governments whatever their political persuasion. This support also reflects the dependence of Israel on the key water aquifers in the West Bank, and the power of the settler movement which threatens to respond to any pullback by shattering the unity of Jews both inside and outside Israel. In short, she argues that the Greater Israel campaign to preclude any possibility of Palestinian national independence has won, and there is no prospect of establishing a new state of Palestine separate from Green Line Israel.
Tilley’s argument against the possibility of a Palestinian State conveniently excludes many significant counter-factors which she simply implies are either idealistic or naive. But more importantly her argument is totally Israeli-centered, and makes little reference to the impact of Palestinian political culture. She assumes that only Israeli decisions and actions preclude a two-state solution, and neglects to analyze Palestinian attitudes, actions and interests that may also enhance or hinder two states. This one-sided discussion is also extended to her discussion of possible alternatives.
Tilley admits that a one-state solution would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. But she then retreats to glib assertions, rather than facts. She acknowledges that many Jews fear that they could experience "marginalization, oppression and even expulsion in a unified state" (p. 161). But she simplistically dismisses such concerns as not reflecting the reality of Palestinian beliefs and actions toward Israel, and/or as based on "racial stereotyping" (p. 163).What Tilley doesn’t state here is the obvious. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews will never willingly agree to give up the power of state sovereignty, and return to being a powerless minority. This consensus operates for two reasons. Firstly, there is the historical oppression of Jews in both the West culminating in the Holocaust, and in the East culminating in the systematic expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the 1950s (Mendes 2002; 2005). Jews regard statehood as essential for defending their right to live free from actual or potential scapegoating as a minority group irrespective of the current decline of anti-Semitism in most of the global community.
Secondly, there has been 60 years of the Israeli-Arab conflict including ongoing Palestinian and Arab political and military attacks against the State of Israel and its civilian population. Whatever may be said about the complex causes of this conflict and the division of responsibility, most Jews believe that the Palestinians would attempt to slaughter the Jewish civilian population if they ever had the opportunity and the means to do so. This fear may or may not be reasonable, but there is no way that the Israeli Jews will expose themselves to the possibility of that threat being fulfilled.
The second text by Palestinian-American Ali Abunimah (2006) devotes more space to arguing the potential benefits of one unified state for both peoples. Abunimah claims to be a moderate and an advocate of non-violence who supports "a permanent, protected, and vibrant national Jewish presence in all of Israel-Palestine as partners and equals" (p. 105). He admits that he supported the Oslo Peace Accord, and the two-state solution that it appeared to promise. However, he joins Tilley in blaming Israel’s continued building of settlements for the failure of the Oslo peace negotiations. He also argues that two states will not address the rights of the 1.35 million Palestinians who live inside Green Line Israel, or the four million Palestinian exiles who live outside Israel and the Territories.
Abuminah argues that the settlement process is not reversible. Whilst acknowledging that a clear majority of Israelis and Palestinians favor two states, he notes the important qualification that most Israelis would not support a full dismantling of the West Bank settlements. He suggests that the limitations of the Israeli position was confirmed by the Camp David negotiations of July 2000, and even by the unofficial Geneva Peace Accord signed by Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abed Rabbo in December 2003 (Beilin 2004). For Abuminah, none of these two-state proposals meet minimum Palestinian demands for the dismantling of all settlements, and the unconditional return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel.
Both Tilley and Abuminah are concerned with only one side of the conflict. They are passionate supporters of the Palestinian narrative and at best pay lip-service to the Israeli counter-narrative. Neither provides a serious political strategy for achieving their one-state objective. This is because it is arguably a solution based on despair and fatalism.
To use one comparable analogy, it is the equivalent of the East Timorese giving up the struggle for an independent state in the 1980s and ‘90s, and instead helplessly seeking to transfer the whole of Indonesia into a bi-national state of Indonesia and East Timor. I doubt that plan would have enjoyed much chance of success. Similarly, if Israel can’t be persuaded by the international community to cede the Palestinians an independent state in the Territories, then there is absolutely no hope that the Israelis will be persuaded to go even further and completely dissolve their state. Two states remains the only viable option for achieving Palestinian self-determination.
References are included in the printed version of this article featured in the Spring 2008 issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS. Dr. Philip Mendes is a senior lecturer in the department of social work at Australia's Monash University, and the author or co-author of six books, including "Jews and Australian Politics" (Sussex Academic 2004) and most recently "Australia’s Welfare Wars Revisited" (UNSW Press 2008).
A number of the London conference presenters are closely associated with calls for an academic boycott of Israel, which I have described elsewhere as based on a racial or ethnic stereotyping of all Israeli Jews – and all Israeli academics in particular – as an oppressor people (Mendes 2006). In my opinion, this group appear to be using the bi-national argument as a mere ruse to put a humanitarian face on what is an ethnocentric and even openly genocidal proposal. The political strategy is to simplistically limit the options for conflict resolution to either a Greater Israel which is likely to become a pariah state due to denying national and civil rights to the Palestinians despite their demographic majority, or one unified state which will inevitably become a Greater Palestine due to the higher Palestinian birthrate. The two-state solution, which would respect the national rights of both peoples, is conveniently rejected.
Nevertheless, two recent books have expounded the one-state solution in significant detail, and deserve to be examined on their merits. The first text by US scholar Virginia Tilley (2005) argues that there are overwhelming territorial and political barriers to any two-state solution. She claims that Jewish settlements have removed the territorial basis for a viable Palestinian state. Any Palestinian entity carved out of the remaining enclaves would be "little more than a sealed vessel of growing poverty and demoralization," and almost certainly a source of ongoing anger, political instability and violence (p. 5).
In addition, Tilley claims that it is inconceivable that any Israeli Government would have the political will to dismantle the settlements. She notes that the settlements have prospered because they have enjoyed the ongoing patronage of Jewish national institutions such as the Jewish National Fund and all Israeli governments whatever their political persuasion. This support also reflects the dependence of Israel on the key water aquifers in the West Bank, and the power of the settler movement which threatens to respond to any pullback by shattering the unity of Jews both inside and outside Israel. In short, she argues that the Greater Israel campaign to preclude any possibility of Palestinian national independence has won, and there is no prospect of establishing a new state of Palestine separate from Green Line Israel.
Tilley’s argument against the possibility of a Palestinian State conveniently excludes many significant counter-factors which she simply implies are either idealistic or naive. But more importantly her argument is totally Israeli-centered, and makes little reference to the impact of Palestinian political culture. She assumes that only Israeli decisions and actions preclude a two-state solution, and neglects to analyze Palestinian attitudes, actions and interests that may also enhance or hinder two states. This one-sided discussion is also extended to her discussion of possible alternatives.
Tilley admits that a one-state solution would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. But she then retreats to glib assertions, rather than facts. She acknowledges that many Jews fear that they could experience "marginalization, oppression and even expulsion in a unified state" (p. 161). But she simplistically dismisses such concerns as not reflecting the reality of Palestinian beliefs and actions toward Israel, and/or as based on "racial stereotyping" (p. 163).What Tilley doesn’t state here is the obvious. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews will never willingly agree to give up the power of state sovereignty, and return to being a powerless minority. This consensus operates for two reasons. Firstly, there is the historical oppression of Jews in both the West culminating in the Holocaust, and in the East culminating in the systematic expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the 1950s (Mendes 2002; 2005). Jews regard statehood as essential for defending their right to live free from actual or potential scapegoating as a minority group irrespective of the current decline of anti-Semitism in most of the global community.
Secondly, there has been 60 years of the Israeli-Arab conflict including ongoing Palestinian and Arab political and military attacks against the State of Israel and its civilian population. Whatever may be said about the complex causes of this conflict and the division of responsibility, most Jews believe that the Palestinians would attempt to slaughter the Jewish civilian population if they ever had the opportunity and the means to do so. This fear may or may not be reasonable, but there is no way that the Israeli Jews will expose themselves to the possibility of that threat being fulfilled.
The second text by Palestinian-American Ali Abunimah (2006) devotes more space to arguing the potential benefits of one unified state for both peoples. Abunimah claims to be a moderate and an advocate of non-violence who supports "a permanent, protected, and vibrant national Jewish presence in all of Israel-Palestine as partners and equals" (p. 105). He admits that he supported the Oslo Peace Accord, and the two-state solution that it appeared to promise. However, he joins Tilley in blaming Israel’s continued building of settlements for the failure of the Oslo peace negotiations. He also argues that two states will not address the rights of the 1.35 million Palestinians who live inside Green Line Israel, or the four million Palestinian exiles who live outside Israel and the Territories.
Abuminah argues that the settlement process is not reversible. Whilst acknowledging that a clear majority of Israelis and Palestinians favor two states, he notes the important qualification that most Israelis would not support a full dismantling of the West Bank settlements. He suggests that the limitations of the Israeli position was confirmed by the Camp David negotiations of July 2000, and even by the unofficial Geneva Peace Accord signed by Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abed Rabbo in December 2003 (Beilin 2004). For Abuminah, none of these two-state proposals meet minimum Palestinian demands for the dismantling of all settlements, and the unconditional return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel.
Both Tilley and Abuminah are concerned with only one side of the conflict. They are passionate supporters of the Palestinian narrative and at best pay lip-service to the Israeli counter-narrative. Neither provides a serious political strategy for achieving their one-state objective. This is because it is arguably a solution based on despair and fatalism.
To use one comparable analogy, it is the equivalent of the East Timorese giving up the struggle for an independent state in the 1980s and ‘90s, and instead helplessly seeking to transfer the whole of Indonesia into a bi-national state of Indonesia and East Timor. I doubt that plan would have enjoyed much chance of success. Similarly, if Israel can’t be persuaded by the international community to cede the Palestinians an independent state in the Territories, then there is absolutely no hope that the Israelis will be persuaded to go even further and completely dissolve their state. Two states remains the only viable option for achieving Palestinian self-determination.
References are included in the printed version of this article featured in the Spring 2008 issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS. Dr. Philip Mendes is a senior lecturer in the department of social work at Australia's Monash University, and the author or co-author of six books, including "Jews and Australian Politics" (Sussex Academic 2004) and most recently "Australia’s Welfare Wars Revisited" (UNSW Press 2008).
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Mendes: One-State Solution Means No Solution
Dr. Philip Mendes is a senior lecturer in the department of social work at Monash University near Melbourne, Australia. This article by him is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS:
Today almost the entire international community claims to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority have signed up to two states. So have most of their respective supporters in the USA, Australia and elsewhere.
I have supported two states for over 25 years as the only solution that would potentially meet both the minimum security needs of Israel and the minimum national aspirations of the Palestinians. For me two states has always meant simply the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign Jewish state within roughly the pre-1967 Green Line borders, and equally the right of the Palestinians to an independent state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This means no coerced Jewish settlements within Palestinian territory, and equally no coerced return of Palestinian refugees within Green Line Israel.
However, there remains a number of serious practical barriers to any successful implementation of a two-state solution. These include:
1) The continuing presence of 121 Israeli settlements and 260,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank (not counting East Jerusalem) including the large city of Ariel which has a population of more than 20,000 people (Peace Now 2008).
2) The growing influence and potential domination of Palestinian politics by Hamas, a racist religious fundamentalist group which is committed to the violent destruction of the State of Israel.
3) The reluctance of any Israeli Government – whatever its political color – to take active steps to dismantle the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, or even to prevent the growth and expansion of existing settlements and settler numbers.
4) The continuing demand by all Palestinian political factions for a literal rather than symbolic Right of Return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel, rather than to the Palestinian Territories.
5) The ongoing violence by both sides including Israeli pre-emptive attacks on Palestinian militants which also impact on civilians within the Palestinian Territories, and Palestinian suicide bombings and rocket attacks which specifically target civilians within Green Line Israel.
Given the above concerns, there has been some conjecture as to whether or not the two-state project is still viable. I personally believe that the five barriers cited can be overcome, but a detailed analysis of that complex debate necessarily belongs elsewhere. What follows here is a specific consideration of the alternative proposal for a one-state or bi-national solution.
It should be noted that bi-national proposals have some history. A number of Zionist groups in the 1930s and ‘40s – including Brit Shalom, Ichud and Hashomer Hatzair – advocated a bi-national solution, but their proposals enjoyed only limited support from the Jewish community in Palestine and virtually no support from the Arabs. A similar suggestion was put forward without success as the minority report of the Special United Nations Commission on Palestine in August 1947 (Cohen 1976: 95-97, 133-134, 138-39, 142-43, 208-09, 215).
In the early 1970s, Al Fatah proposed a "secular democratic state" of Palestine which was interpreted by many on the left as a bi-national state in which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would live as equals. However, the official PLO statement clarified that this actually meant an exclusively Arab state of Palestine in which the Jews (or some Jews) would enjoy religious freedom, but no national rights (O’Mahony 1990: 10-11). Continued in Part 2 ....
Today almost the entire international community claims to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority have signed up to two states. So have most of their respective supporters in the USA, Australia and elsewhere.
I have supported two states for over 25 years as the only solution that would potentially meet both the minimum security needs of Israel and the minimum national aspirations of the Palestinians. For me two states has always meant simply the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign Jewish state within roughly the pre-1967 Green Line borders, and equally the right of the Palestinians to an independent state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This means no coerced Jewish settlements within Palestinian territory, and equally no coerced return of Palestinian refugees within Green Line Israel.
However, there remains a number of serious practical barriers to any successful implementation of a two-state solution. These include:
1) The continuing presence of 121 Israeli settlements and 260,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank (not counting East Jerusalem) including the large city of Ariel which has a population of more than 20,000 people (Peace Now 2008).
2) The growing influence and potential domination of Palestinian politics by Hamas, a racist religious fundamentalist group which is committed to the violent destruction of the State of Israel.
3) The reluctance of any Israeli Government – whatever its political color – to take active steps to dismantle the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, or even to prevent the growth and expansion of existing settlements and settler numbers.
4) The continuing demand by all Palestinian political factions for a literal rather than symbolic Right of Return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel, rather than to the Palestinian Territories.
5) The ongoing violence by both sides including Israeli pre-emptive attacks on Palestinian militants which also impact on civilians within the Palestinian Territories, and Palestinian suicide bombings and rocket attacks which specifically target civilians within Green Line Israel.
Given the above concerns, there has been some conjecture as to whether or not the two-state project is still viable. I personally believe that the five barriers cited can be overcome, but a detailed analysis of that complex debate necessarily belongs elsewhere. What follows here is a specific consideration of the alternative proposal for a one-state or bi-national solution.
It should be noted that bi-national proposals have some history. A number of Zionist groups in the 1930s and ‘40s – including Brit Shalom, Ichud and Hashomer Hatzair – advocated a bi-national solution, but their proposals enjoyed only limited support from the Jewish community in Palestine and virtually no support from the Arabs. A similar suggestion was put forward without success as the minority report of the Special United Nations Commission on Palestine in August 1947 (Cohen 1976: 95-97, 133-134, 138-39, 142-43, 208-09, 215).
In the early 1970s, Al Fatah proposed a "secular democratic state" of Palestine which was interpreted by many on the left as a bi-national state in which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would live as equals. However, the official PLO statement clarified that this actually meant an exclusively Arab state of Palestine in which the Jews (or some Jews) would enjoy religious freedom, but no national rights (O’Mahony 1990: 10-11). Continued in Part 2 ....
Spring 2008 issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS
You can now preview the brand new Spring issue of Meretz USA's ISRAEL HORIZONS magazine online, in advance of receiving it in print, by clicking here to the Meretz USA Web site.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Lurie: Israel’s unfulfilled promises
Israel’s infuriating habit continues of undermining prospects for a peace agreement by insisting on plans to build new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Read the Haaretz editorial of April 1, "Fooling Ourselves," for a good pronouncement on the absurdity of this course. For another, read the following from J. Zel Lurie’s column scheduled for publication in the Jewish Journal of South Florida:
As Secretary of State Condi Rice left Jerusalem for Amman on March 31 to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah, Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert found it fitting to announce that he had approved the contraction of 800 additional housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.
Thus he met the demand of Shas, which will stay in the Olmert/Barak coalition so long as the government ignores its commitment to freeze settlement construction and evacuate some settlement outposts. At the same time, the Jerusalem municipality, which has a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) mayor, approved the construction of 500 additional housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev. To the Palestinians who hope to make East Jerusalem their capital, this is also a violation of the commitment to freeze construction.
At her meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak the day before, Mr. Barak promised to evacuate 50 checkpoints between the Palestinian cities of Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin, Their elimination would considerably ease Palestinian traffic if the promises are kept.
The Israeli army’s record on keeping promises is not good. Six months ago, the government promised to evacuate 24 checkpoints. Machsom Watch, a group of Jewish women that monitors the checkpoints, looked for evacuations but never found them.
Back in November 2005, after an all-night session in Jerusalem, Dr. Rice secured Israel’s agreement to work with the United States on eliminating checkpoints and settlements. These complex negotiations were followed by nothing of consequence.
Now, on her 14th trip to the Middle East since the beginning of 2007, Dr. Rice told reporters at a news briefing: "We haven’t been monitoring and verifying during the last two years. We want to be much more systematic about what is being promised and what is being done than we have been able to be in the past."
I wonder who stopped her. What prevented her from monitoring Israel’s promises?
Four years ago, in April 2004, Dov Wineglass, a special emissary of the Israel government, went to Washington to see Dr. Rice about Israel’s actions on the West Bank. According to a letter he wrote to Dr. Rice after the meeting, the American ambassador to Israel would receive within 30 days a map defining the boundaries of all the settlements. On checkpoints, Wineglass promised that the Israel Army would present to the American ambassador to Israel a list of the checkpoints and roadblocks. Wineglass wrote "a list of barriers already removed and a timetable for further removals will be included."
No lists were ever received by the American ambassador. No map showing the boundaries of the settlements was produced. Not within 40 days or four years. No barriers were ever removed. But, according to the Israel press, Dr. Rice had agreed to all of Israel’s demands.
According to the United Nations observer in Jerusalem, 30 barriers have been added since the Annapolis meeting last fall.
Mark Regev, the Israeli spokesman, told the press: "Any taking down of checkpoints is a calculated risk." It balances Israel’s need for security with the Palestinian need to travel from place to place. It should be stressed that none of the checkpoints under discussion are in the vicinity of Israel’s frontier.
On the day Dr. Rice traveled to Jordan, March 31, Peace Now issued a Settlement Watch report covering the period August 2007 to March 2008. The report stated that not a single building project in the West Bank had been frozen. Some construction was going on in over a hundred settlements in this period.
What did Dr. Rice do in Amman? She persuaded Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks with Ehud Olmert despite Israel’s violations of its promises to remove some settlements and freeze construction in all of them.
While Dr. Rice was wielding the power of the weakening dollar in Jerusalem and Amman, the Arab League was holding its annual songfest a few miles north in Damascus. The meeting was boycotted by the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the president of Egypt to show their displeasure with Syria’s actions in Lebanon, which remains without a president.
Muamar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, poured his contempt on the missing Arab heads of state. He asked: "How can we accept that a foreign power comes to topple an Arab leader while we stand watching." He pointed out that Saddam Hussein was once an ally of the United States.
While the Arab leaders were bickering over Lebanon in Damascus and Dr. Rice was pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement in Jerusalem and Amman, the Israeli army was doing its own thing in the West Bank. The army’s civil administration handed out scores of demolition orders to Palestinian farmers in the valley north of Hebron. According to the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron, the Arab farmers are being squeezed between two Jewish settlements that covet their fertile land.
And south of Hebron, the CPT reports that the fanatical residents of the illegal settlement of Havat Ma’on continue to harass the shepherds grazing their flocks. Shabbat is their favorite day for action against their Palestinian neighbors.
On Saturday, March 29, the CPT reports that 20 Israeli settlers from the illegal outpost Havat Ma’on invaded the Palestinian village of At-Tawani. They harassed the residents, scared the children and two of them "mooned" the Palestinians and the internationals, displaying their buttocks. This was a typical weekend in Israel and Palestine.
As Secretary of State Condi Rice left Jerusalem for Amman on March 31 to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah, Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert found it fitting to announce that he had approved the contraction of 800 additional housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.
Thus he met the demand of Shas, which will stay in the Olmert/Barak coalition so long as the government ignores its commitment to freeze settlement construction and evacuate some settlement outposts. At the same time, the Jerusalem municipality, which has a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) mayor, approved the construction of 500 additional housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev. To the Palestinians who hope to make East Jerusalem their capital, this is also a violation of the commitment to freeze construction.
At her meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak the day before, Mr. Barak promised to evacuate 50 checkpoints between the Palestinian cities of Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin, Their elimination would considerably ease Palestinian traffic if the promises are kept.
The Israeli army’s record on keeping promises is not good. Six months ago, the government promised to evacuate 24 checkpoints. Machsom Watch, a group of Jewish women that monitors the checkpoints, looked for evacuations but never found them.
Back in November 2005, after an all-night session in Jerusalem, Dr. Rice secured Israel’s agreement to work with the United States on eliminating checkpoints and settlements. These complex negotiations were followed by nothing of consequence.
Now, on her 14th trip to the Middle East since the beginning of 2007, Dr. Rice told reporters at a news briefing: "We haven’t been monitoring and verifying during the last two years. We want to be much more systematic about what is being promised and what is being done than we have been able to be in the past."
I wonder who stopped her. What prevented her from monitoring Israel’s promises?
Four years ago, in April 2004, Dov Wineglass, a special emissary of the Israel government, went to Washington to see Dr. Rice about Israel’s actions on the West Bank. According to a letter he wrote to Dr. Rice after the meeting, the American ambassador to Israel would receive within 30 days a map defining the boundaries of all the settlements. On checkpoints, Wineglass promised that the Israel Army would present to the American ambassador to Israel a list of the checkpoints and roadblocks. Wineglass wrote "a list of barriers already removed and a timetable for further removals will be included."
No lists were ever received by the American ambassador. No map showing the boundaries of the settlements was produced. Not within 40 days or four years. No barriers were ever removed. But, according to the Israel press, Dr. Rice had agreed to all of Israel’s demands.
According to the United Nations observer in Jerusalem, 30 barriers have been added since the Annapolis meeting last fall.
Mark Regev, the Israeli spokesman, told the press: "Any taking down of checkpoints is a calculated risk." It balances Israel’s need for security with the Palestinian need to travel from place to place. It should be stressed that none of the checkpoints under discussion are in the vicinity of Israel’s frontier.
On the day Dr. Rice traveled to Jordan, March 31, Peace Now issued a Settlement Watch report covering the period August 2007 to March 2008. The report stated that not a single building project in the West Bank had been frozen. Some construction was going on in over a hundred settlements in this period.
What did Dr. Rice do in Amman? She persuaded Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks with Ehud Olmert despite Israel’s violations of its promises to remove some settlements and freeze construction in all of them.
While Dr. Rice was wielding the power of the weakening dollar in Jerusalem and Amman, the Arab League was holding its annual songfest a few miles north in Damascus. The meeting was boycotted by the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the president of Egypt to show their displeasure with Syria’s actions in Lebanon, which remains without a president.
Muamar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, poured his contempt on the missing Arab heads of state. He asked: "How can we accept that a foreign power comes to topple an Arab leader while we stand watching." He pointed out that Saddam Hussein was once an ally of the United States.
While the Arab leaders were bickering over Lebanon in Damascus and Dr. Rice was pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement in Jerusalem and Amman, the Israeli army was doing its own thing in the West Bank. The army’s civil administration handed out scores of demolition orders to Palestinian farmers in the valley north of Hebron. According to the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron, the Arab farmers are being squeezed between two Jewish settlements that covet their fertile land.
And south of Hebron, the CPT reports that the fanatical residents of the illegal settlement of Havat Ma’on continue to harass the shepherds grazing their flocks. Shabbat is their favorite day for action against their Palestinian neighbors.
On Saturday, March 29, the CPT reports that 20 Israeli settlers from the illegal outpost Havat Ma’on invaded the Palestinian village of At-Tawani. They harassed the residents, scared the children and two of them "mooned" the Palestinians and the internationals, displaying their buttocks. This was a typical weekend in Israel and Palestine.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
American Jews and Israel: Friendship, Not Worship
From the upcoming (Spring '08) edition of Israel Horizons
Recently, the editor of a widely-circulated Jewish weekly newspaper bemoaned the growing estrangement between American Jews and Israeli Jews. Citing recent studies by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute established by the Jewish Agency, the editor reported that the Jews of Israel and the USA are having an increasingly difficult time understanding each other’s needs and concerns, and are becoming ever more apathetic regarding their widening gap.
Interestingly, the editor of this mainstream Jewish paper drew great attention to this situation in his weekly column, but not only failed to reflect on what the origins of the problem might be, but also omitted any possible remedies that might check the momentum of this intercontinental drift.
Having just returned from two weeks in Israel and Palestine, as part of Meretz USA’s “Israel Symposium,” I could not help but notice how different the atmosphere was than what the editor had described. I wondered why our Symposium had witnessed such a high degree of engagement and communication when the general picture appears to be one characterized by miscommunication and disengagement.
Before I address that question, a few words about the Israel Symposium are in order. The weeklong trip to Israel has become an annual tradition for Meretz USA and the highlight of our educational and organizational calendar. It is a time during which Meretz USA supporters are given the opportunity to see Israel as few other American Jewish visitors do: We receive fascinating in-depth briefings from well-known, high-ranking politicians and from renowned academics and journalists. This year’s roster included Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad and Meretz chair Dr. Yossi Beilin.
At least as importantly, we meet and exchange ideas with people on the cutting edge of social and political change in Israel – people like Yehuda Shaul of the IDF reservists’ group, “Breaking the Silence,” which seeks to educate the Israeli public and the Diaspora Jewish community about the moral and psychological repercussions of their service in the Occupied Territories.
Or like Hanna Barag, of “Machsom Watch,” a group of Israeli women peace activists who work to highlight the repressive nature of Israel’s checkpoint system in the West Bank.
Or Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad of the “Parents Circle,” an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost first-degree relatives in the conflict, but who nonetheless band together to work for reconciliation and non-violence.
But what makes the atmosphere on the Meretz USA Symposium so special is not only the caliber of the people we meet: It is the attitude embraced by the participants themselves.
‘Hasbara’ is bad PR
While the implicit (and, with some organizations, explicit) agenda of most Israel missions is to learn that assemblage of facts that will help “make the case” for Israel back at home, the Meretz USA Symposium is designed to enable participants, thirsty for knowledge, to gain an authentic understanding of a very complex story. Symposium participants have always displayed a rare desire to know (and love) the real, multidimensional Israel – not the idealized country too often depicted by tendentious spin-doctors engaged in Israel’s “hasbara” (PR) effort. This year was no exception.
But this desire to get the full picture, I believe, is not born of any intellectual purism or political correctness, and certainly not of any enmity toward Israel. If anything, it is fostered by the understanding that the presentation of a “cardboard Israel” is destined to be ineffective in a world that increasingly turns its attention to the Middle East and is less tolerant of dichotomous explanations involving “good (Israel) vs. evil (Arabs).”
Indeed, as someone who cares deeply about Israel, I have long argued that the cheerleading service provided by ostensibly “pro-Israel” advocates is actually a disservice. Cheerleaders, by definition, are biased observers; their credibility is inherently suspect. Since it’s hard to believe that Israel’s government never gets it wrong, those who make this claim end up as dubious “character witnesses” in the court of public opinion. And although main-street America continues to support Israel in large numbers, such sentiment is not predestinate: Should Americans’ sympathy for Israel ever waver, the Jewish homeland will need allies who can be counted on for “straight talk”.
Knee-jerk support for Israeli government policy and actions isn’t right, and it isn’t smart: This year’s Israel Symposium participants neither overlooked nor absolved Israel’s mistakes and flaws: They recognized them, as part of a three-dimensional reality in which all parties – Palestinians, the greater Arab world, the US, et al. – have too frequently blundered and erred.
The Courage (and Concern) to Question
It goes without saying that, at the end of the day, the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel are the ones who must make the crucial decisions that determine the country’s future and directly affect their lives. Israel is a sovereign nation and questions of land, security, peace, equal rights and religious and cultural diversity rightly will be resolved by those who dwell within its borders. Nonetheless, as opposed to the mythic images that some would-be advocates of Israel have created, the citizens of Israel are flesh-and-blood, not infallible superheroes; their attitudes and opinions were not handed down from Mt. Sinai and should not be regarded as immune to challenge and criticism.
My fellow participants on the Meretz USA Symposium showed utmost respect for the many figures who were kind enough to meet us. But they also displayed the intellectual courage to challenge, to question, to politely demur and even to register protest. They understood that, although the Israelis make the final decisions, the process by which these decisions are made will only be enriched by a two-way dialogue with concerned and committed American Jews.
We all know from our personal lives that when we find ourselves stumped by a problem or unable to overcome an obstacle, we seek the counsel of someone who cares – someone who is less involved, and who can understand our concerns but also offers an additional, complementary perspective. That someone is called a friend.
Meretz USA, and the participants on its Symposium, are friends of Israel – not “yes-men,” not “fans” or “devotees”– friends who care enough to be honest, even when it hurts.
Talking to– not only 'standing with'– Israel
Which brings me back to the editor who bemoaned the chasm between Israeli and American Jews. All too often, we hear that for a growing segment of American Jews, a relationship with Israel is not as important as it once was. Perhaps this is because the connection American Jews are being offered is not a relationship in the true sense of the word.
Certainly there are many American Jews who are sincerely engaged in efforts to “defend,” “safeguard” or “stand with” Israel. But how many more Jews – especially younger ones – are turning off to Israel (and being lost to the Jewish community), because they can’t help but feel that the prevailing model for interaction is far too shallow, too servile, too uninspiring.
Israel needs a robust, long-term relationship with the American Jewish community as a whole – not just the support of a minority of dedicated activists. And the American Jewish community can only draw strength and motivation from getting to know the real Israel – a beautiful-but-blemished country with character, quite unlike the airbrushed version that is the staple of the country’s tourism industry. It is a country to love, not worship.
Such a relationship will come about, however, only when American Jews are allowed – no, encouraged – to dialogue with Israel about the problems that both are facing: openly, constructively, respectfully and candidly; to speak out of love – even when it’s tough love – like friends are supposed to.
Recently, the editor of a widely-circulated Jewish weekly newspaper bemoaned the growing estrangement between American Jews and Israeli Jews. Citing recent studies by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute established by the Jewish Agency, the editor reported that the Jews of Israel and the USA are having an increasingly difficult time understanding each other’s needs and concerns, and are becoming ever more apathetic regarding their widening gap.
Interestingly, the editor of this mainstream Jewish paper drew great attention to this situation in his weekly column, but not only failed to reflect on what the origins of the problem might be, but also omitted any possible remedies that might check the momentum of this intercontinental drift.
Having just returned from two weeks in Israel and Palestine, as part of Meretz USA’s “Israel Symposium,” I could not help but notice how different the atmosphere was than what the editor had described. I wondered why our Symposium had witnessed such a high degree of engagement and communication when the general picture appears to be one characterized by miscommunication and disengagement.
Before I address that question, a few words about the Israel Symposium are in order. The weeklong trip to Israel has become an annual tradition for Meretz USA and the highlight of our educational and organizational calendar. It is a time during which Meretz USA supporters are given the opportunity to see Israel as few other American Jewish visitors do: We receive fascinating in-depth briefings from well-known, high-ranking politicians and from renowned academics and journalists. This year’s roster included Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad and Meretz chair Dr. Yossi Beilin.
At least as importantly, we meet and exchange ideas with people on the cutting edge of social and political change in Israel – people like Yehuda Shaul of the IDF reservists’ group, “Breaking the Silence,” which seeks to educate the Israeli public and the Diaspora Jewish community about the moral and psychological repercussions of their service in the Occupied Territories.
Or like Hanna Barag, of “Machsom Watch,” a group of Israeli women peace activists who work to highlight the repressive nature of Israel’s checkpoint system in the West Bank.
Or Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad of the “Parents Circle,” an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost first-degree relatives in the conflict, but who nonetheless band together to work for reconciliation and non-violence.
But what makes the atmosphere on the Meretz USA Symposium so special is not only the caliber of the people we meet: It is the attitude embraced by the participants themselves.
‘Hasbara’ is bad PR
While the implicit (and, with some organizations, explicit) agenda of most Israel missions is to learn that assemblage of facts that will help “make the case” for Israel back at home, the Meretz USA Symposium is designed to enable participants, thirsty for knowledge, to gain an authentic understanding of a very complex story. Symposium participants have always displayed a rare desire to know (and love) the real, multidimensional Israel – not the idealized country too often depicted by tendentious spin-doctors engaged in Israel’s “hasbara” (PR) effort. This year was no exception.
But this desire to get the full picture, I believe, is not born of any intellectual purism or political correctness, and certainly not of any enmity toward Israel. If anything, it is fostered by the understanding that the presentation of a “cardboard Israel” is destined to be ineffective in a world that increasingly turns its attention to the Middle East and is less tolerant of dichotomous explanations involving “good (Israel) vs. evil (Arabs).”
Indeed, as someone who cares deeply about Israel, I have long argued that the cheerleading service provided by ostensibly “pro-Israel” advocates is actually a disservice. Cheerleaders, by definition, are biased observers; their credibility is inherently suspect. Since it’s hard to believe that Israel’s government never gets it wrong, those who make this claim end up as dubious “character witnesses” in the court of public opinion. And although main-street America continues to support Israel in large numbers, such sentiment is not predestinate: Should Americans’ sympathy for Israel ever waver, the Jewish homeland will need allies who can be counted on for “straight talk”.
Knee-jerk support for Israeli government policy and actions isn’t right, and it isn’t smart: This year’s Israel Symposium participants neither overlooked nor absolved Israel’s mistakes and flaws: They recognized them, as part of a three-dimensional reality in which all parties – Palestinians, the greater Arab world, the US, et al. – have too frequently blundered and erred.
The Courage (and Concern) to Question
It goes without saying that, at the end of the day, the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel are the ones who must make the crucial decisions that determine the country’s future and directly affect their lives. Israel is a sovereign nation and questions of land, security, peace, equal rights and religious and cultural diversity rightly will be resolved by those who dwell within its borders. Nonetheless, as opposed to the mythic images that some would-be advocates of Israel have created, the citizens of Israel are flesh-and-blood, not infallible superheroes; their attitudes and opinions were not handed down from Mt. Sinai and should not be regarded as immune to challenge and criticism.
My fellow participants on the Meretz USA Symposium showed utmost respect for the many figures who were kind enough to meet us. But they also displayed the intellectual courage to challenge, to question, to politely demur and even to register protest. They understood that, although the Israelis make the final decisions, the process by which these decisions are made will only be enriched by a two-way dialogue with concerned and committed American Jews.
We all know from our personal lives that when we find ourselves stumped by a problem or unable to overcome an obstacle, we seek the counsel of someone who cares – someone who is less involved, and who can understand our concerns but also offers an additional, complementary perspective. That someone is called a friend.
Meretz USA, and the participants on its Symposium, are friends of Israel – not “yes-men,” not “fans” or “devotees”– friends who care enough to be honest, even when it hurts.
Talking to– not only 'standing with'– Israel
Which brings me back to the editor who bemoaned the chasm between Israeli and American Jews. All too often, we hear that for a growing segment of American Jews, a relationship with Israel is not as important as it once was. Perhaps this is because the connection American Jews are being offered is not a relationship in the true sense of the word.
Certainly there are many American Jews who are sincerely engaged in efforts to “defend,” “safeguard” or “stand with” Israel. But how many more Jews – especially younger ones – are turning off to Israel (and being lost to the Jewish community), because they can’t help but feel that the prevailing model for interaction is far too shallow, too servile, too uninspiring.
Israel needs a robust, long-term relationship with the American Jewish community as a whole – not just the support of a minority of dedicated activists. And the American Jewish community can only draw strength and motivation from getting to know the real Israel – a beautiful-but-blemished country with character, quite unlike the airbrushed version that is the staple of the country’s tourism industry. It is a country to love, not worship.
Such a relationship will come about, however, only when American Jews are allowed – no, encouraged – to dialogue with Israel about the problems that both are facing: openly, constructively, respectfully and candidly; to speak out of love – even when it’s tough love – like friends are supposed to.
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