I've not posted about Israel/Palestine for a while. It's not that there wasn't anything to post about but just the opposite. Israel is increasingly being seen as an apartheid state and the divestment movements are proliferating. Many of these movements are being led by righteous Jews. Again, I recommend two blogs by righteous Jews to follow: Mondoweiss and Anthony Lowenstein. Israel is self-destructing and that makes for a very dangerous situation.

"The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners" with Professor John J. Mearsheimer

"My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called “Green Line” Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza. In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

"Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there. I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.

"The story I will tell is straightforward. Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans – to include many American Jews – Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a “Greater Israel,” which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream.

"Let me explain how I reached these conclusions."

more

Israel Won't Change Unless the Status Quo Has a Downside
Obama's Peace Effort Is Doomed Because Israel Loses Nothing If It Fails

"Uncomfortable at the spectacle of the Obama administration in an open confrontation with the Israeli government, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman -- who represents the interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party on Capitol Hill as faithfully as he does those of the health insurance industry -- called for a halt. "Let's cut the family fighting, the family feud," he said. "It's unnecessary; it's destructive of our shared national interest. It's time to lower voices, to get over the family feud between the U.S. and Israel. It just doesn't serve anybody's interests but our enemies."

"The idea that the U.S. and Israel are "family" with identical national interests is a convenient fiction that Lieberman and his fellow Israel partisans have worked relentlessly to promote -- and enforce -- in Washington over the past two decades. If the bonds are indeed familial, however, last week's showdown between Washington and the Netanyahu government may be counted as one of those feuds in which truths are uttered in the heat of the moment that call into question the fundamental terms of the relationship. Such truths are never easily swept under the rug once the dispute is settled. The immediate rupture, that is, precludes a simple return to the status quo ante; instead, a renegotiation of the terms of the relationship somehow ends up on the agenda. "

more

Israel is putting American lives at risk

"In Foreign Policy, Mark Perry describes an extraordinary Pentagon briefing on Israel’s impact on conflicts across the Middle East. Here is an excerpt and following some comments of my own, the author has provided me with additional background on his reporting.
[Important update: A senior military officer told Foreign Policy by email that one rather minor detail in Perry's report was incorrect. A request from Gen Petraeus for the Palestinian occupied territories to be brought within CENTCOM's region of operations was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, and not directly to the White House (who may or may not have subsequently been consulted). It is significant that the Pentagon made this correction, not because it was an important detail but on the contrary, because it was inconsequential to the overall narrative. In effect, the Pentagon clearly but discreetly said that there was virtually nothing in this report that could be denied.]

"On January 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief JCS Chairman Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow…and too late.” "

more

Israel, a New Decade

"I turn on the television just before dinner. Prime-time. An Israeli series: "The Pilots’ Wives" ("Meet the Women behind Our Heroes", said the promo), interrupted occasionally by a commercial depicting a soldier missing his mother’s soup ("disclaimer: the actor is not a soldier"). After the series, a short public service broadcast showing a group of young men, each in turn boasting his military service, until they notice one of them – a violent zoom-in – keeps quiet; the message is clear. Then the news, with at least one public relations item pushed by the military: "teen-age girls eager to become fighters", "a remote-control watch-and-shoot system on the Gaza fence", "a unique glimpse into a top-secret air-force base" or the like. Not to mention the real news, be it about the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iran, or even the billions of terrorists disguised as miserable African refugees allegedly waiting on the Egyptian border to inundate Israel: all these issues, and many more, are predominantly managed and framed by the military."

more

In its 62nd year, Israel is in a diplomatic, security and moral limbo
Pragmatic, peace-seeking spirit that filled the Israeli people, in tune with the Zionist revolution, has weakened.

"The joy attendant on Israel's Independence Day traditionally focused on emphasizing the growing list of the young state's achievements and the sense that the country was progressing toward a better future - one of peace, enhanced physical and existential security, integration into the family of nations and the region, and a normalized existence. But the country's lifespan, which was considered a great virtue in and of itself during the first few decades, has become secondary to a far more important question: Within what dynamic is Israel operating? Is time on Israel's side? Is it setting goals for itself and working toward their realization? Has it blossomed into maturity? Are its citizens more secure and happier? Does it greet the future with hope?

"Unfortunately, Israel's 62nd Independence Day finds it in a kind of diplomatic, security and moral limbo that is certainly no cause for celebration. It is isolated globally and embroiled in a conflict with the superpower whose friendship and support are vital to its very existence. It is devoid of any diplomatic plan aside from holding onto the territories and afraid of any movement. It wallows in a sense of existential threat that has only grown with time. It seizes on every instance of anti-Semitism, whether real or imagined, as a pretext for continued apathy and passivity. In many respects, it seems that Israel has lost the dynamism and hope of its early decades, and is once again mired in the ghetto mentality against which its founders rebelled."

more

The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted After the League of Nations Recognized It

"There is nothing inaccurate about the maps at all, historically. Goldberg maintained that the Palestinians’ ‘original sin’ was rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan. But since Ben Gurion and other expansionists went on to grab more territory later in history, it is not clear that the Palestinians could have avoided being occupied even if they had given away willingly so much of their country in 1947. The first original sin was the contradictory and feckless pledge by the British to sponsor Jewish immigration into their Mandate in Palestine, which they wickedly and fantastically promised would never inconvenience the Palestinians in any way. It was the same kind of original sin as the French policy of sponsoring a million colons in French Algeria, or the French attempt to create a Christian-dominated Lebanon where the Christians would be privileged by French policy. The second original sin was the refusal of the United States to allow Jews to immigrate in the 1930s and early 1940s, which forced them to go to Palestine to escape the monstrous, mass-murdering Nazis.

"The map attracted so much ire and controversy not because it is inaccurate but because it clearly shows what has been done to the Palestinians, which the League of Nations had recognized as not far from achieving statehood in its Covenant. Their statehood and their territory has been taken from them, and they have been left stateless, without citizenship and therefore without basic civil and human rights. The map makes it easy to see this process. The map had to be stigmatized and made taboo. But even if that marginalization of an image could be accomplished, the squalid reality of Palestinian statelessness would remain, and the children of Gaza would still be being malnourished by the deliberate Israeli policy of blockading civilians. The map just points to a powerful reality; banishing the map does not change that reality."

more

It’s not about peace

"Even more important is the image created by all these talks about peace. for many people – and this is something I’ve noticed especially in the US – it seems as though there are two equal parties, almost two states, who are entering a diplomatic process to sort their on-going differences. But there is only one state here. Israel is negotiating – when there are negotiations – with the people who are under its own control, and for which it is refusing to grant civil rights.

"In other words, talking about peace hides the real nature of the problem, which is the occupation. When we set peace as our goal, it means that the absence of peace – meaning the violence – was the problem. This is true for the Israeli side, but it’s only partly true for the Palestinians. Their main concern is the lack of civil and human rights. For them, the violence that they suffer is only the result of the initial problem, which is the occupation. By talking about peace and peace only, we are accepting the Israeli definition of the problem as well as its solution.

"When we discuss peace, only the two state solution is acceptable, since that’s how you make peace – between states. On the other hand, if it’s a human or civil rights problem, we can also think of other solutions, such as a confederation, or “one person, one vote”. These ideas are totally unacceptable for Israel, so again, by returning to the idea of “the peace process” the world actually chooses the Israeli narrative over that of the Palestinians. I even think that by this endless talk of the would-be-Palestinian state, we almost tend to believe that such state exists, or that at least the Palestinians are running their own lives, when in fact, the army’s control over the West bank has never been tighter, and the measures against the Palestinians have never been harder. Not many people notice that, because in order to understand what’s going on now, when there is no apparent violence, we must ask questions about rights, not peace."

more

Habakkuk on reality in the ME

"Thank you for that most interesting explanation of why Hizballah may indeed, as Nicolas Noe suggested in Asia Times last month 'believe that the next war can and should be the last one between Israel and its enemies.'

"What you write, however, has the effect of further inflaming a suspicion which has been growing steadily stronger in me over the past weeks -- that the situation in the Middle East is rather like a smouldering volcano. It may not erupt, but could well do so, and if it did, the eruption might come suddenly and unexpectedly, generating a conflict which could escalate out of control, possibly with totally catastrophic results.

"And the likelihood of catastrophe is, I think, greatly increased by the fact that many people are living in a fool's paradise, and do not grasp quite how dangerous the situation

"A key part of the background here I take to be the change in Israeli attitudes described in the seminal 2008 Middle East Policy article 'Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and the "Middle Eastern Muck"' by Ian Lustick.

"The fundamental change whose implications Lustick explores in this paper is the effective abandonment over the last few years of the 'Iron Wall' conception, which Jabotinsky set out in 1925, and which was the basis of Israeli policy until recently. In essence, this conception involved bludgeoning the Arabs into accepting that Israel could not be destroyed, as a prelude to negotiated accommodations.

"What has now replaced this, Lustick argues, is an image of Israel as an isolated outpost of Western civilisation, in an Arab/Muslim world with which no accommodation is possible. And this change opens up all kinds of possibilities for catastrophe."

more