After Annapolis
Below we present a series of articles, many from Ha’aretz newspaper in Tel Aviv, that provide different perspectives on what happened at Annapolis or why something more significant couldn’t happen (written in advance). If you read them all, you get a sense of the discourse going on in Israel, and the range of opinions.
Rabbi Lerner on Annapolis:
Negotiations will resume between Israel and Palestine. But there is no particular reason to believe that they will lead to a resolution of the conflict. There has been no “breakthrough” in consciousness on either side of the struggle.
What would a “breakthrough” look like? Well, it could take the form of some actions. Israel could dismantle the checkpoints in the West Bank and free the thousands of Palestinians kidnapped by the Israeli army and held without charges, sometimes tortured, in Israeli detention camps. Palestinians could disarm the various militias in the West Bank and put on trial suspected terrorists against Israel.
Or a “breakthrough” could take the form of a statement from either side that spoke to the fundamental needs on the other side. Israelis could acknowledge that the creation of the State of Israel led to the unjustified expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli army and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands from their homes in fear of being caught in a war zone, and that this created a Palestinian refugee population for which Israel has some (though not total) responsibility, and that Israel would participate in an international agreement to provide reparations for the loss of land and homes and employment caused by this unjustified displacement (though only in conjunction with Arab states and the international community also taking major responsibility for reparations). Israel could further acknowledge that the Palestinian people have a legitimate claim on the West Bank and Gaza, and that any settlement would include Palestinians getting control over at least 95% of that land, and that human rights abuses by Israel had taken place during the Occupation that would and should be prosecuted. And Israeli leaders could express remorse at the loss of lives of Palestinian civilians and visit the graves of Palestinians killed in Israeli military actions. The Palestinians could similarly express remorse at the lives of Israeli civilians lost during terorrist raids into Israel and visit the graves of those Israelis who had been murdered in these attacks. The Palestinians could present on Palestinian t.v. an account of the history of the conflict that helped their people understand why Jews thought they had a right to the land of Israel and what Palestinian leadership had done in the pre-1948 period that made Jews so angry at Palestinians (in the period when it was Jews, not Palestinians, living in detention camps). And the Palestinians could announce the intention to begin to teach the values of non-violence both in public statements and in a curriculum introduced into Palestinian schools.
No such breakthroughs took place.
Nor is there any reason to think that either side has put into motion a process that will lead in this direction.
Yet it would be foolish to close the door or to insist that the whole thing is a charade. Abbas, Olmert and Bush all have strong reasons to want to have a breakthrough, since each has very little else to boast about in terms of political accomplishments while in office. There is every reason to believe that they actually want something dramatic to change as the negotiations proceed.
On the other hand, none of them are willing to act courageously and to use their actual existing power to make breakthroughs happen. Contrast that with Egyptian President Sadat who announced that he was coming to Israel to make peace. By taking that step, Sadat made a gesture that raised hopes in Israel sufficiently for the Israeli population to switch from being against concessions to Egypt to being for those concessions, and the result was the withdrawal from Sinai by Israel and a cold peace that has provided safety for Israel ever since. Contrast that with the Oslo Accord in which Arafat and Rabin signed declarations under the watchful eye of Bill Clinton, but only agreed to a negotiating process and a staged process of implementing a Palestinian state, the stages of which were not ever seriously implemented. What was absent in that case was any agreement about the final terms of a settlement, and hence any incentive for either side to make “painful concessions” in the stages of the process, since there had been no agreement about where the process would lead. Ditto the “Road Map to Peace” proposed by President Bush many years ago had no clarity about where the road was leading, so no one bothered to get on that road to follow its alleged map.
Absent the courage on either side to make dramatic breakthroughs, the negotiations envisioned are unlikely to produce much in the next few years.
Yet the hope for peace is important to sustain, and the negotiations may slowly whittle away at the pessimism on both sides that makes breakthroughs so difficult. For that reason, we should support the process, but without illusions about its likely success. What we can do is help clarify for those who will listen what in fact would be acceptable terms for a resolution of this conflict (see, for example, my book The Geneva Accord and Other Strategies for Middle East Peace, North Atlantic Books, 2004). And we can do our best to prepare the ground for an effort by the next President to use his or her power to push the sides toward a real agreement that would provide a just solution, though as long as the Israel Lobby sets severe limits on such a solution there is little reason to believe that any of the current “front runners” for either major party will be willing to risk his or her political capital to actually push for substantial compromises on both sides.
Ironically, the one thing that might change the situation in future years is a change in the consciousness of America’s ruling elites. The failure of their war in Iraq, and the likely destructive consequences of the likely airstrikes at Iran, may eventually open those elites to the wisdom of a new approach: the strategy of generosity and the Global Marshall Plan. Such a transformation of consciousness on their parts would make it possible for them to use their power, far greater than the power of the Israel Lobby, to push the US government toward a powerful role in insisting that both sides make the necessary concessions that would bring a lasting peace.
We must continue to pray for peace, and also to spread a vision of a world based on mutual caring and generosity, because it is only if that larger vision can get traction in the minds of our fellow citizens of the world that they will be willing to give up territory or “power” for the sake of peace. Rabbi Lerner on Annapolis:
Negotiations will resume between Israel and Palestine. But there is no particular reason to believe that they will lead to a resolution of the conflict. There has been no “breakthrough” in consciousness on either side of the struggle.
What would a “breakthrough” look like? Well, it could take the form of some actions. Israel could dismantle the checkpoints in the West Bank and free the thousands of Palestinians kidnapped by the Israeli army and held without charges, sometimes tortured, in Israeli detention camps. Palestinians could disarm the various militias in the West Bank and put on trial suspected terrorists against Israel.
Or a “breakthrough” could take the form of a statement from either side that spoke to the fundamental needs on the other side. Israelis could acknowledge that the creation of the State of Israel led to the unjustified expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli army and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands from their homes in fear of being caught in a war zone, and that this created a Palestinian refugee population for which Israel has some (though not total) responsibility, and that Israel would participate in an international agreement to provide reparations for the loss of land and homes and employment caused by this unjustified displacement (though only in conjunction with Arab states and the international community also taking major responsibility for reparations). Israel could further acknowledge that the Palestinian people have a legitimate claim on the West Bank and Gaza, and that any settlement would include Palestinians getting control over at least 95% of that land, and that human rights abuses by Israel had taken place during the Occupation that would and should be prosecuted. And Israeli leaders could express remorse at the loss of lives of Palestinian civilians and visit the graves of Palestinians killed in Israeli military actions. The Palestinians could similarly express remorse at the lives of Israeli civilians lost during terorrist raids into Israel and visit the graves of those Israelis who had been murdered in these attacks. The Palestinians could present on Palestinian t.v. an account of the history of the conflict that helped their people understand why Jews thought they had a right to the land of Israel and what Palestinian leadership had done in the pre-1948 period that made Jews so angry at Palestinians (in the period when it was Jews, not Palestinians, living in detention camps). And the Palestinians could announce the intention to begin to teach the values of non-violence both in public statements and in a curriculum introduced into Palestinian schools.
No such breakthroughs took place.
Nor is there any reason to think that either side has put into motion a process that will lead in this direction.
Yet it would be foolish to close the door or to insist that the whole thing is a charade. Abbas, Olmert and Bush all have strong reasons to want to have a breakthrough, since each has very little else to boast about in terms of political accomplishments while in office. There is every reason to believe that they actually want something dramatic to change as the negotiations proceed.
On the other hand, none of them are willing to act courageously and to use their actual existing power to make breakthroughs happen. Contrast that with Egyptian President Sadat who announced that he was coming to Israel to make peace. By taking that step, Sadat made a gesture that raised hopes in Israel sufficiently for the Israeli population to switch from being against concessions to Egypt to being for those concessions, and the result was the withdrawal from Sinai by Israel and a cold peace that has provided safety for Israel ever since. Contrast that with the Oslo Accord in which Arafat and Rabin signed declarations under the watchful eye of Bill Clinton, but only agreed to a negotiating process and a staged process of implementing a Palestinian state, the stages of which were not ever seriously implemented. What was absent in that case was any agreement about the final terms of a settlement, and hence any incentive for either side to make “painful concessions” in the stages of the process, since there had been no agreement about where the process would lead. Ditto the “Road Map to Peace” proposed by President Bush many years ago had no clarity about where the road was leading, so no one bothered to get on that road to follow its alleged map.
Absent the courage on either side to make dramatic breakthroughs, the negotiations envisioned are unlikely to produce much in the next few years.
Yet the hope for peace is important to sustain, and the negotiations may slowly whittle away at the pessimism on both sides that makes breakthroughs so difficult. For that reason, we should support the process, but without illusions about its likely success. What we can do is help clarify for those who will listen what in fact would be acceptable terms for a resolution of this conflict (see, for example, my book The Geneva Accord and Other Strategies for Middle East Peace, North Atlantic Books, 2004). And we can do our best to prepare the ground for an effort by the next President to use his or her power to push the sides toward a real agreement that would provide a just solution, though as long as the Israel Lobby sets severe limits on such a solution there is little reason to believe that any of the current “front runners” for either major party will be willing to risk his or her political capital to actually push for substantial compromises on both sides.
Ironically, the one thing that might change the situation in future years is a change in the consciousness of America’s ruling elites. The failure of their war in Iraq, and the likely destructive consequences of the likely airstrikes at Iran, may eventually open those elites to the wisdom of a new approach: the strategy of generosity and the Global Marshall Plan. Such a transformation of consciousness on their parts would make it possible for them to use their power, far greater than the power of the Israel Lobby, to push the US government toward a powerful role in insisting that both sides make the necessary concessions that would bring a lasting peace.
Meanwhile, we will provide you with ongoing analyses of the process, right here at www.tikkun.org
--Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Chair, NSP (the Network of Spiritual Progressives) www.spiritualprogressives.org)
Please read all that comes below:
Olmert: Reality formed in 1967 to change significantly
Israel, PA agree to strive for accord by end of 2008
By Barak Ravid , Aluf Benn, and Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed Tuesday to immediately launch peace negotiations in order to reach an agreement by the end of 2008, U.S. President George Bush said in his remarks at the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
Prior to his prepared address, Bush read a joint statement agreed on by the sides during last-minute negotiations at the summit. (Watch excerpts from Bush's speech on Haaretz.com TV)
Bush spoke before representatives of more than 50 nations and organizations that he had invited to Annapolis for a day-long conference aimed at restarting the stalled peace process. Among the participants were the foreign ministers of most Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, as well as the Syrian envoy to Washington.
Bush said, reading from the joint statement.
"We agreed to immediately launch good faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including core issues, without exception,"
According to the statement, Israel and the PA also agreed to implement their commitments under the long-dormant U.S.-backed road map for Middle East peace.
According to sources in the Israeli delegation, the Palestinians had refused to sign the document until the last minute.
Bush met Tuesday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at the Annapolis summit. The president met separately with Olmert and Abbas on Monday evening.
The first peace talks are to be held December 12, Bush said, and are to continue biweekly after that.
In his address following the meeting, Bush said,
"The Palestinians understand that terrorism is the enemy standing in the way of a Palestinians state."
"The [final peace] settlement will establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people,"said Bush.
"The United States will keep its strong commitment to the security of the State of Israel and its existence as a homeland for the Jewish people,"he continued.
The U.S. president also urged the Palestinians to dismantle the "infrastructure of terror," and called on Israel to end settlement expansion as well as evacuate the illegal West Bank settlement outposts.
Bush acknowledged.
"The task begun here in Annapolis will be difficult,"
"This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it."
"The time is right, the cause is just, and with hard effort, I know they can succeed,"he said.
Later, in an interview with The Associated Press, Bush spoke of the importance of giving beleaguered Palestinians something positive to look forward to and sketched a grim alternative.
"Without a hopeful vision,"he said,
"it is conceivable that we could lose an entire generation, or a lot of a generation, to radicals and extremists."
the president said.
"There has to be something more positive. And that is on the horizon today,"
Bush also expressed strong support for democracy in Lebanon, saying it was crucial for Middle East peace.
Olmert: Reality that emerged in 1967 to change significantly
In his address, Olmert said Israel was ready for painful concessions for peace, and to dramatically change the reality that emerged following the 1967 Six-Day War. (Watch excerpts from Olmert's speech on Haaretz.com TV)
"We want peace,"he continued.
We demand the end of terror, incitement and hatred. We are prepared to make a painful compromise, rife with risks, in order to realize these aspirations."
"The negotiations will address all of the issues which we have thus far avoided dealing with," he continued. " am convinced that the reality that emerged in our region in 1967 will change significantly. I know this. Many of my people know this. We are prepared for it."
Olmert said Israel was offering an outstretched hand for peace, despite all its concerns.
"The ongoing shooting of Qassam rockets against tens of thousands of residents in the south of Israel, particularly in the city of Sderot, serves as a warning sign, one which we cannot overlook," he said. "I have come here, despite the concerns and the doubts and the hesitations."
"I believe that there is no path other than the path of peace. I believe that there is no just solution other than the solution of two national states for two peoples," he said. "I believe that there is no path that does not involve painful compromise for you, the Palestinians, and for us, the Israelis."
The prime minister said he did not come to Annapolis to "settle historical accounts" for the conflict, adding that he was aware of that Palestinians too have suffered greatly.
Olmert expressed hopes that the sides could resolve the refugee issue, one of the toughest sticking points.
"Israel will be part of an international mechanism that will assist in finding a solution to this problem,"he said.
The prime minister said that a peace agreement could only be implemented, in "gradual and careful" steps, after the road map is fully carried out. "
We will abide by all of our obligations, and so will you."
"There isn't a single Arab state in the north, in the east or in the south with which we do not seek peace," he said. "There isn't a single Muslim state with which we do not want to establish diplomatic relations."
The prime minister took the opportunity to call for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
"I long for the day when I can see Gilad, Eldad and Udi back with their families," he said. "And I will continue relentlessly in my efforts to achieve their release."
Abbas: Israel must end occupation of all PA lands, including E. J'lem
In his address, Abbas called for an end to the
"occupation of all Palestinian lands since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as well as the Syrian Golan and occupied Lebanese territory,"as well as a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. (Watch excerpts from Abbas' speech on Haaretz.com TV)
"We need East Jerusalem to be our capital, and to establish open relations with West Jerusalem,"he continued, urging respect for the holy places of all religions.
"I am not overstating it, Mr. President, if I say the region is at a cross-roads between the pre-Annapolis phase and the post-Annapolis phase," he continued. "We are facing a test as our credibility as a whole - the United States, the Quartet, and the whole international community ... Israel, Palestine and the Arab states as well."
The PA chairman also praised Arab states for attending the summit, saying it proved the sincerity of Arab states to continue what they started by launching a peace initiative in 2002.
Abbas also called on Bush to ensure that Israel releases Palestinian prisoners.
Who's in favor of ending (Israeli) terrorism?
The Annapolis diary, day 3
By Aluf Benn and Shmuel Rosner
1.
If there is a need for proof that nothing changes in Israeli-Palestinian relations, the joint declaration should suffice - the one that was signed a few minutes before President George W. Bush went to the podium and only after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put a little pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. If proof is needed to show that much has changed, then the whispering between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas - a moment after Abbas finished his speech and Olmert took the floor - is proof of this.
The talks over the joint declaration, a total of only 437 words, lasted many weeks and reflected previous rounds of Israeli-Palestinian talks. As always, the Palestinians announced each day that there was a "crisis," and until the last minute declared they were going to pass on the whole thing. As always, the Israelis said that things will be fine, and played down the disagreements. And as always, at the moment of truth, the two sides did not disappoint their American kindergarten teacher. At least they offered a bit of drama to the media on a diplomatic document that is quite dull.
2.
The Americans insisted for many months, with a persistence that is reserved for officials convinced they are correct, that in Annapolis there will be a "meeting" and not a "summit." In the media and the rest of the world they ignored this precise terminology, but the U.S. administration did not give in. It was one of its ways of lowering expectations. Even Olmert, who has a compulsion for correcting mistakes, constantly reiterated that "this is not a conference, but a gathering." Still, in the joint declaration the two leaders expressed their thanks to the "participants in this international conference."
The joint declaration has other such delicate formulations that are understood only by legal experts and veterans of the peace industry. For example, on the question of what the declaration would be called, "declaration" was the Israelis' choice, "document" was the Palestinians' preference, and "understanding" was the American compromise accepted in the end.
Such distinctions may give cause for a giggle, but the declaration contains two elements that will serve the Israeli right wing in attacks it is expected to make on the prime minister. The first is the comparison the declaration makes between "terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis." Translation: Olmert agreed that Israel too is responsible for terrorism and incitement against the Palestinians, and that America will decide in every case who is inciting and who is a terrorist.
No public relations spin will be able to erase that: The comments Ariel Sharon's government presented for the road map specifically rejected the requirement that Israel "cease the violence and the incitement against the Palestinians." Now Israel has given up on its opposition and a moral comparison has been established, which leaves Olmert with a lot of explaining to do. (One of his explanations: it's not "Israel" but rather "Israelis").
The second problematic element, from Israel's point of view, is the commitment to "make every effort" to complete the agreement by the end of 2008. On this matter, the Palestinian demand for a timetable was accepted, and Israel's position, which proposed to leave the timing unspecified, was rejected.
3.
Olmert did everything he could to sterilize the Annapolis declaration from any political booby traps. He had two problems. Avigdor Lieberman and Shas opposed any talk on the core issues, and Eli Yishai threatened that Shas would leave the coalition if "Jerusalem was mentioned at Annapolis." On the other hand, Olmert was faced with the objections of Ehud Barak and the defense establishment to any overly generous gestures of good will to Abbas.
The only issue on which there is no organized opposition was the timetable. No one will leave the cabinet because Israel has committed to reaching a final-status agreement in a year. In politics, a year is a lifetime. And in the Middle East, as Yitzhak Rabin said about the Oslo Accords, "no date is sacred." Therefore, it was convenient for Olmert to give in on this without taking a chance. 'Let the negotiations begin, then we'll see,' is the attitude.
Israel's main gain at Annapolis was in conditioning the implementation of the future agreement, if such is achieved, to the implementation of the obligations laid out in the road map and in rejecting the Palestinian demand that the road map be implemented in parallel with the final-status agreement. The Palestinians wanted Israel to have to evacuate an outpost or freeze a settlement in exchange for every one of their security-related operations. Israel insisted on separating the two, and succeeded.
4.
The issue that threatened to disrupt the talks between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her lead-negotiating counterpart, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qureia, was over who would supervise the two sides and decide whether they are meeting their road map obligations. Experience in the Middle East suggests that the Israelis and the Palestinians are very good at blaming the other side, but they do not really like to keep their obligations. Had this been different the Palestinian terrorist groups and the outposts in the West Bank would have long gone. During the Oslo period there was no responsible adult around to ensure that the obligations were met. The road map sought to correct this and set a mechanism of monitoring under American control.
The Palestinians and the Americans proposed for the current negotiations to set up a tripartite committee that would discuss all issues and decide who was right and who needs to correct things. Defense Minister Ehud Barak opposed this proposal, fearing that Israel will find itself in a minority position, and proposed instead that an American arbitrator would be assigned to decide. The final compromise is that a committee will be set up, but the decision maker will be U.S. General Jim Jones, the former NATO commander, who will take up his new duties in the coming days. Like other generals appointed by the White House for this thankless job, Jones will also probably go through a complicated breaking-in period in the Middle East.
Broken Peace Process
Stephen Zunes | November 26, 2007
There’s little reason to hope for a breakthrough at the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, unless there is a fundamental shift in U.S. policy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there’s little evidence to suggest such a change is forthcoming.
Indeed, Yossi Beilin, the Israeli Knesset member and former cabinet official who served as one of the major architects of the Oslo Accords, called for the conference to be canceled, fearing that it will only be “an empty summit that will only attract Arab ambassadors and not decision-makers alongside an Israeli leadership that prefers [appeasing Israeli hardliners] over a breakthrough to peace.” As a result, he argues that the meeting is doomed to fail and, as a result, would “weaken the Palestinian camp, strengthen Hamas and cause violence.”
The reason for such pessimism is that ever since direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in the early 1990s, U.S. policy has been based on the assumption that both sides need to work out a solution among themselves and both sides need to accept territorial compromise. As reasonable as that may seem on the surface, it ignores the fact that, even if one assumes that both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights to peace, freedom and security, there is a grossly unequal balance of power between the occupied Palestinians and the occupying Israelis. It also avoids acknowledging the fact that the Palestinians, through the Oslo agreement, have recognized the state of Israel on a full 78% of Palestine and what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is asking for is simply the remaining 22% of Palestine that was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and is recognized by the international community as being under belligerent occupation.
International Law
However one may respect Israel for its democratic institutions (at least for its Jewish citizens), its progressive social institutions (like the kibbutzim), and its important role as a homeland for a historically oppressed people, the fact remains that the Palestinians have international law on their side in demanding, in return for security guarantees, an Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The U.S. position, however, is that 22% is too much and that the Palestinians must settle for less.
According to Israeli journalist Uri Avnery, the only way the conference could pave to way the peace would be if President George W. Bush decided “to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.” The United States, which provides Israel with over $4 billion in military and economic aid annually and has repeatedly used its veto power at the UN Security Council to protect the Israeli government from being compelled to live up to its international legal obligations, has the power to do so.
According to Shlomo Brom of Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, “Judging from previous experience, US pressure can be very effective.” There’s no evidence that the United States plans to use that kind of clout, however, to move the peace process forward.
Illegal Settlements
The Palestinians, Saudis and other Arab participants have been pushing for a comprehensive package of Israeli actions that would include a freeze on the growth of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, the release of Palestinian political prisoners, the relaxation of travel restrictions and checkpoints in the occupied territories and an end of construction of parts of the separation barrier inside the West Bank as called for by the International Court of Justice. Failure for Israel to agree to such conditions and the failure of the United States to push Israel to agree to such conditions has led to concerns that the conference would be simply a propaganda coup by the Bush administration and Israeli government to give the appearance of an ongoing peace process when, in fact, they are unwilling to make the necessary comprises for a sustainable peace.
Israel has recently announced the release of approximately 400 Palestinian prisoners, though thousands – most of whom have never engaged in terrorism – remain incarcerated. Some of the roadblocks that have crippled travel and commerce in the occupied West Bank have been lifted, but scores of others still impede Palestinians from traveling from one town to another.
There are some indications that Israel will announce at the conference a freeze on the construction of additional settlements in the West Bank. However, they have agreed to such a freeze on several previous occasions, including in an annex to the 1978 Camp David agreement, the 1992 loan guarantee agreement, the 1993 Oslo Accords, their response to the 2001 Mitchell Report, and other times, only to continue construction anyway without the United States insisting they live up to their promises. And Israel has ruled out withdrawing from these illegal settlements, every one of which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deem it illegal for any country to transfer any part of its civilian population onto territories seized by military force.
Indeed, UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471 explicitly call on Israel to remove its colonists from the occupied territories. However, both the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress have gone on record that Israel should not be required to withdraw from the majority of these settlements.
It’s these settlements, along with the separation barrier snaking its way deep into the West Bank to separate them and surrounding areas from Palestinian population centers, which has made a peace settlement impossible, since the apparent goal of formally annexing them into Israel would divide up a future Palestinian mini-state into a series of non-contiguous cantons consisting of as little as half of the West Bank. These Jewish-only settlements connected by Jewish-only highways effectively have created an apartheid-like situation on the West Bank. Any Palestinian state remaining would effectively be comparable to the notorious Bantustans of South Africa prior to majority rule. Despite this, this partial Israeli disengagement from most Palestinian-populated areas while controlling much of the land surrounding them – known as the Convergence Plan – has received the support of the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress.
Photo Op
Unless Israel and the United States are willing to address the core issues – boundaries that would insure a viable contiguous Palestinian state, withdrawal of troops and settlers from the West Bank (except perhaps for some along the border in exchange for an equal amount of Israeli land), and a just resolution of the refugee problem – the conference will amount to little more than a photo op.
Indeed, the current unilateral Israel initiative is not much worse than the so-called “generous offer” put forward by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000. Arafat’s understandable refusal to accept such a limited proposal was then used by the United States and Israel as supposed proof of the Palestinians’ lack of desire for peace.
The Annapolis meeting is ostensibly designed to re-start the process along the so-called “Roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace, originally announced in 2002, which was to be based on the principle of Israeli support for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel following democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority and the end of terrorist attacks. Provisions called for in Phase I, which was originally hoped to have been completed by 2003, included an end to Palestinian violence, Palestinian political reform (including free elections), Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Authority areas re-conquered since 2001, and a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
However, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and a sizable majority of House members sent a letter to Bush insisting that the peace process be based “above all” on an end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership. There was no mention of any reciprocal actions by the Israeli government, reiterating the longstanding U.S. position that it is not the occupation, but resistance to the occupation, that is the root of the conflict. President Bush agreed and, not surprisingly, the Roadmap stalled.
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State
The prospects of progress growing out of the Annapolis meeting is made all the less likely due to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s insistence, backed by the U.S. Congress, that the Palestinians, despite having formally recognized Israel, also recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” before substantive issues can be negotiated. Given the sizable Palestinian minority in Israel and concerns that it would legitimate past and future Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing, this demand is something that the Palestinian government could never agree to and appears to be designed to prevent the peace process from moving forward.
Indeed, the Soviets never demanded as a precondition of any agreements with the United States that the USSR be formally recognized as a “Communist state,” nor has Pakistan ever demanded that India recognize it as an “Islamic state.”
Though the United States has indicated its desire to emphasize an end to Palestinian violence – particularly acts of terrorism – and addressing Israel’s security concerns, there is no indication that the United States plans to address issues concerning human rights or international law outside of providing increased humanitarian relief for the Palestinians.
If progress seems so unlikely, why is the United States pushing for this summit to go forward? One motivation may simply be for the United States to improve its standing among pro-Western Arab regimes by appearing to be interested in the plight of the Palestinians in order to gain support for the ongoing war in Iraq and increasing threats against Iran. Whatever the reason, unless and until the United States recognizes that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent upon the other, there is little hope for peace.
Stephen Zunes, the Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) Middle East editor, is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, a regular author for Tikkun Magazine, and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
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October 31, 2007
It's Not Only the Israel Lobby
Other Interests Benefit from the Chaos
by Jon Basil Utley
The new, public debate about the Israel lobby is missing a major point – the lobby's allies, the many other interests in America that want chaos in the Middle East. For example, in the Walt-Mearsheimer book there is no listing in the index for "military-industrial complex." For all its vaunted power, the Israel lobby could not dominate America's Mideast policies without cover and active support from other powerful groups. Although AIPAC promotes the lobby's image in Congress as being all powerful, it isn't. The book does specify Christian Zionists as an integral part of the lobby, but it neglects many others.
Another important question is how, when polling data shows that most Jews opposed the Iraq war, did the Likud/settler minority faction take over the whole Israel lobby? Although a minority with an agenda will often win over an amorphous majority, that is not a sufficient explanation. Indeed Jews are at the forefront of the fight against the war and the consequent encroaching police state here in America. Some of the most honest reporting on Israel comes from Jewish media: Ha'aretz in Israel and The Forward in America. What happened?
It was Likudniks headquartered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who first undermined the Oslo Peace Accords. They also urged attacking Iraq long before 9/11. Some, such as David Wurmser, even predicted that the attack could result in Iraq being "ripped apart," splintered into warring tribes for years. Polls show that most Israelis also want peace and support a Palestinian state (in fact, they voted out Likud); meanwhile, the Likudniks want America to attack Iran and Syria. They appeal to those who see a greater Israel "from the Nile to the Euphrates."
The Allies
The first major ally is the military-industrial complex, now funded by the new system of hidden congressional earmarks. Arnaud de Borchgrave first wrote about there being 15,000 defense budget earmarks. These allow a congressman to slip contracts into the budget for favored constituents, who then donate money to the congressman's reelection committee and may also provide well-paid jobs in their districts. These encourage warmaking, or at least threats of war, as never before. It's hard to hide money in the budget for "a bridge to nowhere," but a missile to nowhere will never be questioned, as its sponsors cloak their profits in "national defense."
Among the beneficiaries are the new mercenaries, all the companies subcontracted by the Department of Defense to provide everything from kitchen services to bodyguards and intelligence. All of these are very well paid and now have an interest in promoting unending wars. Add to this the new power of think tanks taking money from war-wanting corporations and foundations to hire skilled polemicists and propagandists to work the 24-hour news cycle.
The complex has seen military spending triple since 9/11. The collapse of communism had threatened them. As they faced lower budgets, they offered a plan to keep military budgets high. The bin Laden attack suited them perfectly. Hundreds of billions were then appropriated for the complex, even for weapons irrelevant to the war on terror. Unbelievable profits rolled in. But few question the waste, and all the Republican presidential candidates (except Ron Paul) and most of the Democrats want to increase it further.
Next come the religious fundamentalists' dominant minority of Armageddonites, those who see Israel's expansion as expediting the return of Christ. They see Bush as God's agent. They saw, in the words of Tom DeLay, that the war in Iraq was a prelude to the chaos necessary to bring about the "end times."
Then there's Big Oil. Although long ago it opposed the Israel lobby for antagonizing the Muslim world, more recently it has cast its lot with imperialism. Kevin Phillips argues in his book American Theocracy that Big Oil supported the Iraq war. It feared that Washington had made American interests so unwelcome in much of the Muslim world that future concessions and contracts would be going to Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, and Russian companies. In this view, conquering Iraq and placing major military bases on its soil would sustain a friendly government that would give first choice to American interests. Needless to say, it's not working out that way. Iraq's oil production is minimal, and even Saudi Arabia chose a French company over American rivals for its last big postwar contract. The war also further revived Russian nationalism and aroused major anti-American forces in Central Asia so that American oil companies are weakened there as well. But at least oil was a tangible reason for war, a reason most recently backed up in Alan Greenspan's biography.
American "Conservatives"
Then come many leading American conservatives. Mostly ignorant of the outside world and still fighting the Cold War against the United Nations, they see the world as allied against America. They strongly sympathized with Bush's go-it-alone agenda. Many have a knee-jerk response to military spending, that more is always better. Others feel hostility toward Arabs and Muslims and see Israelis as being "like us."
During the first Iraq war in 1991, when I was a co-founder of the Committee to Avert a Mideast Holocaust, I saw how many conservatives still resented losing the Vietnam War and wanted to prove to recalcitrant Third Worlders that we could "win" such wars. Others are anti-Semitic and use support for Israel as a cover. Others admire Israel for doing what America could not: smash its enemies without caring about winning hearts and minds. Fox News' TV generals today often express such sentiments for unleashing "total war" (a euphemism for killing more civilians) as the way to win in Iraq. Support for war among traditional conservatives was promoted by National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Heritage Foundation, which excluded virtually all antiwar voices. The common thread among these writers, many of whom I know, was an abysmal ignorance of the world outside Europe. A subset were Englishmen (and some Irishmen), e.g., National Review's former editor, who dreamed of playing Greece to America's Rome. They pine for the old British Empire and long for America to replace it.
There are some indications that Israel will announce at the conference a freeze on the construction of additional settlements in the West Bank. However, they have agreed to such a freeze on several previous occasions, including in an annex to the 1978 Camp David agreement, the 1992 loan guarantee agreement, the 1993 Oslo Accords, their response to the 2001 Mitchell Report, and other times, only to continue construction anyway without the United States insisting they live up to their promises. And Israel has ruled out withdrawing from these illegal settlements, every one of which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deem it illegal for any country to transfer any part of its civilian population onto territories seized by military force.
Indeed, UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471 explicitly call on Israel to remove its colonists from the occupied territories. However, both the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress have gone on record that Israel should not be required to withdraw from the majority of these settlements.
It’s these settlements, along with the separation barrier snaking its way deep into the West Bank to separate them and surrounding areas from Palestinian population centers, which has made a peace settlement impossible, since the apparent goal of formally annexing them into Israel would divide up a future Palestinian mini-state into a series of non-contiguous cantons consisting of as little as half of the West Bank. These Jewish-only settlements connected by Jewish-only highways effectively have created an apartheid-like situation on the West Bank. Any Palestinian state remaining would effectively be comparable to the notorious Bantustans of South Africa prior to majority rule. Despite this, this partial Israeli disengagement from most Palestinian-populated areas while controlling much of the land surrounding them – known as the Convergence Plan – has received the support of the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress.
Photo Op
Unless Israel and the United States are willing to address the core issues – boundaries that would insure a viable contiguous Palestinian state, withdrawal of troops and settlers from the West Bank (except perhaps for some along the border in exchange for an equal amount of Israeli land), and a just resolution of the refugee problem – the conference will amount to little more than a photo op.
Indeed, the current unilateral Israel initiative is not much worse than the so-called “generous offer” put forward by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000. Arafat’s understandable refusal to accept such a limited proposal was then used by the United States and Israel as supposed proof of the Palestinians’ lack of desire for peace.
The Annapolis meeting is ostensibly designed to re-start the process along the so-called “Roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace, originally announced in 2002, which was to be based on the principle of Israeli support for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel following democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority and the end of terrorist attacks. Provisions called for in Phase I, which was originally hoped to have been completed by 2003, included an end to Palestinian violence, Palestinian political reform (including free elections), Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Authority areas re-conquered since 2001, and a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
However, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and a sizable majority of House members sent a letter to Bush insisting that the peace process be based “above all” on an end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership. There was no mention of any reciprocal actions by the Israeli government, reiterating the longstanding U.S. position that it is not the occupation, but resistance to the occupation, that is the root of the conflict. President Bush agreed and, not surprisingly, the Roadmap stalled.
Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State
The prospects of progress growing out of the Annapolis meeting is made all the less likely due to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s insistence, backed by the U.S. Congress, that the Palestinians, despite having formally recognized Israel, also recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” before substantive issues can be negotiated. Given the sizable Palestinian minority in Israel and concerns that it would legitimate past and future Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing, this demand is something that the Palestinian government could never agree to and appears to be designed to prevent the peace process from moving forward.
Indeed, the Soviets never demanded as a precondition of any agreements with the United States that the USSR be formally recognized as a “Communist state,” nor has Pakistan ever demanded that India recognize it as an “Islamic state.”
Though the United States has indicated its desire to emphasize an end to Palestinian violence – particularly acts of terrorism – and addressing Israel’s security concerns, there is no indication that the United States plans to address issues concerning human rights or international law outside of providing increased humanitarian relief for the Palestinians.
If progress seems so unlikely, why is the United States pushing for this summit to go forward? One motivation may simply be for the United States to improve its standing among pro-Western Arab regimes by appearing to be interested in the plight of the Palestinians in order to gain support for the ongoing war in Iraq and increasing threats against Iran. Whatever the reason, unless and until the United States recognizes that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent upon the other, there is little hope for peace.
Stephen Zunes, the Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) Middle East editor, is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, a regular author for Tikkun Magazine, and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
*******************(***********************(*****************
October 31, 2007
It's Not Only the Israel Lobby
Other Interests Benefit from the Chaos
by Jon Basil Utley
The new, public debate about the Israel lobby is missing a major point – the lobby's allies, the many other interests in America that want chaos in the Middle East. For example, in the Walt-Mearsheimer book there is no listing in the index for "military-industrial complex." For all its vaunted power, the Israel lobby could not dominate America's Mideast policies without cover and active support from other powerful groups. Although AIPAC promotes the lobby's image in Congress as being all powerful, it isn't. The book does specify Christian Zionists as an integral part of the lobby, but it neglects many others.
Another important question is how, when polling data shows that most Jews opposed the Iraq war, did the Likud/settler minority faction take over the whole Israel lobby? Although a minority with an agenda will often win over an amorphous majority, that is not a sufficient explanation. Indeed Jews are at the forefront of the fight against the war and the consequent encroaching police state here in America. Some of the most honest reporting on Israel comes from Jewish media: Ha'aretz in Israel and The Forward in America. What happened?
It was Likudniks headquartered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who first undermined the Oslo Peace Accords. They also urged attacking Iraq long before 9/11. Some, such as David Wurmser, even predicted that the attack could result in Iraq being "ripped apart," splintered into warring tribes for years. Polls show that most Israelis also want peace and support a Palestinian state (in fact, they voted out Likud); meanwhile, the Likudniks want America to attack Iran and Syria. They appeal to those who see a greater Israel "from the Nile to the Euphrates."
The Allies
The first major ally is the military-industrial complex, now funded by the new system of hidden congressional earmarks. Arnaud de Borchgrave first wrote about there being 15,000 defense budget earmarks. These allow a congressman to slip contracts into the budget for favored constituents, who then donate money to the congressman's reelection committee and may also provide well-paid jobs in their districts. These encourage warmaking, or at least threats of war, as never before. It's hard to hide money in the budget for "a bridge to nowhere," but a missile to nowhere will never be questioned, as its sponsors cloak their profits in "national defense."
Among the beneficiaries are the new mercenaries, all the companies subcontracted by the Department of Defense to provide everything from kitchen services to bodyguards and intelligence. All of these are very well paid and now have an interest in promoting unending wars. Add to this the new power of think tanks taking money from war-wanting corporations and foundations to hire skilled polemicists and propagandists to work the 24-hour news cycle.
The complex has seen military spending triple since 9/11. The collapse of communism had threatened them. As they faced lower budgets, they offered a plan to keep military budgets high. The bin Laden attack suited them perfectly. Hundreds of billions were then appropriated for the complex, even for weapons irrelevant to the war on terror. Unbelievable profits rolled in. But few question the waste, and all the Republican presidential candidates (except Ron Paul) and most of the Democrats want to increase it further.
Next come the religious fundamentalists' dominant minority of Armageddonites, those who see Israel's expansion as expediting the return of Christ. They see Bush as God's agent. They saw, in the words of Tom DeLay, that the war in Iraq was a prelude to the chaos necessary to bring about the "end times."
Then there's Big Oil. Although long ago it opposed the Israel lobby for antagonizing the Muslim world, more recently it has cast its lot with imperialism. Kevin Phillips argues in his book American Theocracy that Big Oil supported the Iraq war. It feared that Washington had made American interests so unwelcome in much of the Muslim world that future concessions and contracts would be going to Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, and Russian companies. In this view, conquering Iraq and placing major military bases on its soil would sustain a friendly government that would give first choice to American interests. Needless to say, it's not working out that way. Iraq's oil production is minimal, and even Saudi Arabia chose a French company over American rivals for its last big postwar contract. The war also further revived Russian nationalism and aroused major anti-American forces in Central Asia so that American oil companies are weakened there as well. But at least oil was a tangible reason for war, a reason most recently backed up in Alan Greenspan's biography.
American "Conservatives"
Then come many leading American conservatives. Mostly ignorant of the outside world and still fighting the Cold War against the United Nations, they see the world as allied against America. They strongly sympathized with Bush's go-it-alone agenda. Many have a knee-jerk response to military spending, that more is always better. Others feel hostility toward Arabs and Muslims and see Israelis as being "like us."
During the first Iraq war in 1991, when I was a co-founder of the Committee to Avert a Mideast Holocaust, I saw how many conservatives still resented losing the Vietnam War and wanted to prove to recalcitrant Third Worlders that we could "win" such wars. Others are anti-Semitic and use support for Israel as a cover. Others admire Israel for doing what America could not: smash its enemies without caring about winning hearts and minds. Fox News' TV generals today often express such sentiments for unleashing "total war" (a euphemism for killing more civilians) as the way to win in Iraq. Support for war among traditional conservatives was promoted by National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Heritage Foundation, which excluded virtually all antiwar voices. The common thread among these writers, many of whom I know, was an abysmal ignorance of the world outside Europe. A subset were Englishmen (and some Irishmen), e.g., National Review's former editor, who dreamed of playing Greece to America's Rome. They pine for the old British Empire and long for America to replace it.
Finally there are the neoconservatives, the brains of the War Party, the influential think-tankers and lifetime Washington policy wonks. Though many are Jewish, their support for belligerence is motivated mainly by the desire of some intellectuals for excitement, relevance, and power. It's a common trait of those who have never been out in the real world, especially business or the military. Remember that before 9/11 they were demanding a confrontation with Russia and then war with China over the U.S. spy plane incident. For them, any war would do; it did not have to be against Iraq. In fact, their founder, Irving Kristol, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1996 that America needed a real enemy, one "worthy of our mettle." Long before 9/11 others (John Bolton, for example) were urging the U.S. to abandon treaties and, indeed, ignore international law because it would constrain the imperialist policies they promoted.
In conclusion, this alliance of interests should be better understood. Aside from more wars, the risk, as Kevin Phillips has said, is that unending war with the Muslim world may do to America what the World War I did to England: weaken us irreparably.
How to Get Out?
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.
Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to
all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes:In conclusion, this alliance of interests should be better understood. Aside from more wars, the risk, as Kevin Phillips has said, is that unending war with the Muslim world may do to America what the World War I did to England: weaken us irreparably.
How to Get Out?
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.
Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to
all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
One fool throws a stone into the water,
a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.
- Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?
- Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.
- Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …
IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them has any substance. For one simple reason: no one of the three partners has any capital at his disposal.
- Bush is bankrupt. In order to succeed at Annapolis, he would have to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.
But Bush is quite unable to exert the slightest pressure on Israel, even if he wanted to. In the US, the election season has already begun, and the two big parties are bulwarks standing in the way of any pressure on Israel. The Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.
- Olmert is in an even weaker position. His coalition still survives only because there is no alternative in the present Knesset. It includes elements that in any other country would be called fascist (For historical reasons, Israelis don't like to use this term). He is prevented by his partners from making any compromise, however tiny - even if he wanted to reach an agreement.
This week, the Knesset adopted a bill that requires a two-thirds majority for any change of the borders of Greater Jerusalem. This means that Olmert cannot even give up one of the outlying Palestinian villages that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. He is also prevented from even approaching the 'core issues" of the conflict.
- Mahmoud Abbas cannot move away from the conditions laid down by Yasser Arafat (the 3rd anniversary of whose death was commemorated this week). If he strays from the straight and narrow, he will fall. He has already lost the Gaza Strip, and can lose the West Bank, too. On the other side, if he threatens violence, he will lose all he has got: the favor of Bush and the cooperation of the Israeli security forces.
The three poker players are going to sit down together, pretending to start the game, while none of them has a cent to put on the table.
THE MAJESTIC mountain seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the minute. It's against the laws of nature: the closer we get to it, the smaller it seems. What looked to many like a veritable Mt. Everest first turned into an ordinary mountain, then into a hill, and now it hardly looks like an anthill. And even that is shrinking, too.
First the participants were to deal with the "core issues". Then it was announced that a weighty declaration of intentions was to be adopted. Then a mere collection of empty phrases was proposed. Now even that is in doubt.
As usual, our side is the most creative at this task. After all, we are experts in building roadblocks, walls and fences. This week, an obstacle larger then the Great Wall of China appeared.
Ehud Olmert demanded that, before any negotiations, the Palestinians "recognize Israel as a Jewish state". He was followed by his coalition partner, the ultra-right Avigdor Liberman, who proposed staying away from Annapolis altogether if the Palestinians do not fulfill this demand in advance.
Let's examine this condition for a moment:
The Palestinians are not required to recognize the state of Israel. After all, they have already done so in the Oslo agreement - in spite of the fact that Israel has yet to recognize the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own based on the Green Line borders.
No, the government of Israel demands much more: the Palestinians must now recognize Israel as a "Jewish state".
Does the USA demand to be recognized as a "Christian" or "Anglo-Saxon state"? Did Stalin demand that the US recognize the Soviet Union as a "Communist state"? Does Poland demand to be recognized as a "Catholic state", or Pakistan as an "Islamic state"? Is there any precedent at all for a state to demand the recognition of its domestic regime?
The demand is ridiculous per se. But this can easily be shown by analysis ad absurdum.
What is a "Jewish state"? That has never been spelled out. Is it a state with a majority of Jewish citizens? Is it "the state of the Jewish people" - meaning the Jews from Brooklyn, Paris and Moscow? Is it "a state belonging to the Jewish religion" - and if so, does it belong to secular Jews as well? Or perhaps it belongs only to Jews under the Law of Return - i.e. those with a Jewish mother who have not converted to another religion?
These questions have not been decided. Are the Palestinians required to recognize something that is the subject of debate in Israel itself?
According to the official doctrine, Israel is a "Jewish and democratic state". What should the Palestinians do if, according to democratic principles, some day my opinion prevails and Israel becomes an "Israeli state" that belongs to all its citizens - and to them alone? (After all, the US belongs to all its citizens, including Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, not to mention "Native-Americans".)
The sting is, of course, that this formula is quite unacceptable to Palestinians because it would hurt the million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The definition "Jewish state" turns them automatically into - at best - second class citizens. If Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues were to accede to this demand, they would be sticking a knife in the backs of their own relatives.
Olmert & Co. know this, of course. They are not posing this demand in order to get it accepted. They pose it in order that it not be accepted. By this ploy they hope to avoid any obligation to start meaningful negotiations.
Moreover, according to the deceased Road Map, which all parties pretend to accept, Israel must dismantle all settlements set up after March, 2000, and freeze all the others. Olmert is quite unable to do that. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas must destroy the "terror infrastructure". Abbas can't do that either - as long as there is no independent Palestinian state with an elected government.
I imagine Bush tossing and turning in his bed at night, cursing the speechwriter who put this miserable sentence into his mouth. On their way to heaven, his curses must be mingling with those of Olmert and Abbas.
WHEN THE leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine were about to sign the Declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, the document was not ready. Sitting in front of the cameras and history, they had to sign on an empty page. I am afraid that something like that will happen in Annapolis.
And then all of them will head back to their respective homes, heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief.
**********************************
People who hate the very idea of peace
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Annapolis summit, Israel
You know them. The people who come out every time there's any chance of anything resembling a move toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians. You know their simmering rage, their triumphant condescension, their propensity to call anyone who opposes them, at best, a wishful thinker, at worst, a dangerous traitor.
They are people for whom the very idea of peace ignites a passionate hatred. It is, more often than not, directed against people on their own side of the Jewish-Arab divide.
They will tell you that this peace, any peace, is fictitious, virtual, a fantasy, a sham. They will tell you that for true peace, you need not give up a thing.
They will tell you that this is not their idea. It is God's idea.
It is God's will that their side have everything, own everything, all the land, all of the Land, and that the other side should see that, understand that, accept that. Live with it. Or live somewhere else.
You know these people only too well. In a moment, you will see them on the bottom of this page.
They are the very first to reject the idea that there is anything resembling symmetry between extremists on the two sides. They are also the very first to illustrate that symmetry.
You don't have far to look. On Monday in Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum declared that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was promoting a "failed and dangerous" policy that undermined Palestinian unity.
he said, again referring to Abbas.
"The Palestinian people's history has not seen a worst era than that of Abu Mazen as president,"
A few hours later in Jerusalem, MK Zvi Hendel was addressing a rally of the Yesha settlers council, also protesting the Annapolis conference. "I'm very sorry to say we have a weak and very dangerous prime minister."
"Never before has a leader posed such a danger to the people of Israel.
There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, and with Olmert wounded from all the police investigations he is weak enough to divide Jerusalem, free murderers and load them up with arms on their way out."
Jump cut to Gaza. Mahmoud Zahar, a founding leader of Hamas, is speaking to a rally of 2,000 people strongly opposed to Annapolis.
"Anyone who stands in the face of resistance or fights it or cooperates with the occupation against it is a traitor,"he says, in a clear reference to Abbas.
senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said in a speech.
"The Land of Palestine ... is purely owned by the Palestinians,"
"No person, group, government or generation has the right to give up one inch of it."
Dissolve to Jerusalem, where settler leader Shaul Goldstein is speaking to a parallel rally.
he says.
"The people of Israel did not give you a mandate to give away its property and what belongs to it,"
Fade to Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, seen as the more moderate leader of Hamas, tells the crowds "We would prefer to die than give up the land of Palestine. We will not give up one grain of the land of Palestine, and we will never recognize Israel."
Final cut to demonstration in Jerusalem's Paris Square. A sign reads "
There was never a Palestinian people."
There you are. Repeat after me:
Not one inch.
You have no right.
Anyone who gives away the property of our people is a dangerous traitor.
It belongs to us, all of it.
Jerusalem is ours in its entirety.
The land is ours alone, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.
Any act is just in defense of our right to our land.
Our case, our cause is entirely, objectively just. Theirs is a flat lie.
A no to compromise is a yes to self-defense.
Peace is an illusion.
Don't even think about it.
Uri Avnery
24.11.07
Omelettes into Eggs
I WAS awakened from deep sleep by the noise. There was a commotion outside, which was getting louder by the minute. The shout of excited people. An eruption of joy.
I stuck my nose outside the door of my Haifa hotel room. I was told enthusiastically that the United Nations General Assembly had just decided to partition the country.
I went back into my room and closed the door behind me. I had no desire to join the celebrations.
November 29, 1947 - a day that changed our lives forever.
At this historic moment, how could I feel lonely, alienated and most of all - sad?
I was sad because I love all of this country - Nablus and Hebron no less than Tel-Aviv and Rosh-Pina.
I was sad because I knew that blood, much blood, would be shed.
But it was mainly a question of my political outlook.
I was 24 years old. Two years before, I and a group of friends had set up a political-ideological group that aroused intense anger in the Yishuv (the Hebrew population in Palestine). Our ideas, which provoked a very strong reaction, were regarded as a dangerous heresy.
The "Young Palestine Circle" ("Eretz-Yisrael Hatz'ira" in Hebrew) published occasional issues of a magazine called "ba-Ma'avak" ("In the Struggle"), and was therefore generally known as "the ba-Ma'avak Group") advocating a revolutionary new ideology, whose main points were:
- We, the young generation that had grown up in this country, were a new nation.
- Our language and culture meant we should be called the Hebrew Nation.
- Zionism gave birth to this nation, and had thereby fulfilled its mission.
- From here on, Zionism has no further role to play. It is a hindrance to the free development of the new nation, and should be dismantled, like the scaffolding after a house is built.
- The new Hebrew nation is indeed a part of the Jewish people - as the new Australian nation, for example, is a part of the Anglo-Saxon people - but has a separate identity, its own interests and a new culture.
- The Hebrew nation belongs to the country, and is a natural ally of the Arab national movement. Both national movements are rooted in the country and its history, from the ancient Semitic civilization to the present.
- The new Hebrew nation does not belong to Europe and the "West", but to awakening Asia and the Semitic Region - a term we invented in order to distance ourselves from the European-colonial term "Middle East".
- The new Hebrew nation must integrate itself in the region, as a full and equal partner. Together with all the nations of the Semitic Region, it strives for the liberation of the region from the colonial empires.
WITH THIS world view, we naturally opposed the partition of the country.
Two months before the UN partition resolution, in September 1947, I published a pamphlet called "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", in which I proposed a completely different plan: that the Hebrew national movement and the Palestinian-Arab national movement combine into one single national movement and establish a joint state in the whole of Palestine, based on the love of the country (patriotism, in the real sense).
This was far from the "bi-national" idea, which had important adherents in those days. I never believed in this. Two different nations, each of which clings to its own national vision, cannot live together in one state. Our vision was based on the creation of a new, joint nation, with a Hebrew and an Arab component.
We hastily translated the essence of the pamphlet into English and Arabic, and I went to distribute it to the editorial offices of the Arab newspapers in Jaffa. It was no longer the town I had known from earlier days, when my work (clerk in a law office) frequently took me to the government offices there. The atmosphere felt dark and ominous.
WITH THE expected UN resolution looming, we decided to publish a special issue of ba-Ma'avak devoted completely to it. A student of the Haifa Technical University volunteered to supply a drawing for the front page, and that's why I found myself at that fateful moment in that small Haifa hotel.
I couldn't go back to sleep again. I got up and, in the excitement of the moment, wrote a poem that was published in that special issue. The first verse went like this:
"I swear to you, motherland, / On this bitter day of your humiliation, / Great and united / You will rise from the dust. / The cruel wound / Will burn in the hearts of your sons / Until your flags / Will wave from the sea to the desert."
One of our group composed a melody, and we sang it in the following days, as we bade farewell to our dreams.
THE MOMENT the UN resolution was adopted, it was clear that our world had changed completely, that an era had come to an end and a new epoch had begun, both in the life of the country and also in the life of every one of us.
We hurriedly pasted on the walls a large poster warning of a "Semitic Fraticidal War"' but the war was already on. When the first bullet was fired, the possibility of creating the joint, united single country was shattered.
I am proud of my ability to adapt rapidly to extreme changes. The first time I had to do this was when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and my life changed abruptly and completely. I was then nine years old, and everything that had happened before was dead for me. I started a new life in Palestine. On November 29, 1947, it was happening again - to me and to all of us.
As the well-known saying has it, one can make an omelette from eggs, but not eggs from an omelette. Banal, perhaps, but how very true.
The moment the Hebrew-Arab war started, the possibility that the two nations would live together in one state expired. Wars change reality.
I joined the "Haganah Battalions", the forerunner of the IDF. As a soldier in the special commando unit that was later called "Samson's Foxes", I saw the war as it was - bitter, cruel, inhuman. First we faced the Palestinian fighters, later the fighters of the wider Arab world. I passed through dozens of Arab villages, many abandoned in the storm of battle, many others whose inhabitants were driven out after being occupied.
It was an ethnic war. In the first months, no Arabs were left behind our lines, no Jews were left behind the Arab lines. Both sides committed many atrocities. In the beginning of the war, we saw the pictures of the heads of our comrades paraded on stakes through the Old City of Jerusalem. We saw the massacre committed by the Irgun and the Stern Group in Deir Yassin. We knew that if we were captured, we would be slaughtered, and the Arab fighters knew they could expect the same.
The longer the war dragged on, the more I became convinced of the reality of the Palestinian nation, with which we must make peace at the end of the war, a peace based on partnership between the two peoples.
While the war was still going on, I expressed this view in a number of articles that were published at the time in Haaretz. Immediately after the fighting was over, when I was still in uniform convalescing from my wounds, I started meeting with two young Arabs (both of whom were later elected to the Knesset) in order to plan a common path. I could not have imagined that 60 years later this effort would still not be over.
NOWADAYS, THE IDEA appears here and there of turning the omelette back into the egg, of dismantling the State of Israel and the State-of-Palestine-to-be, and establishing a single state, as we sang at that time: "from the sea to the desert".
This is presented as a fresh new idea, but it is actually an attempt to turn the wheel back and to bring back to life an idea that is irrevocably obsolete. In human history, that just does not happen. What has been forged in blood and fire in wars and intifadas, - the State of Israel and the Palestinian national movement - will not just disappear. After a war, states can achieve peace and partnership, like Germany and France, but they do not merge into one state.
I am not a nostalgic type. I look back at the ideas of my younger days, and try to analyze what has been superseded and what is left.
The ideas of the "Ba-Ma'avak group" were indeed revolutionary and bold - but could they have been put into practice? Looking back, it is clear to me that the "Joint State" idea was already unrealistic when we brought it up. Perhaps it would have been possible one or two generations earlier. But by the middle of the 40s, the situation of the two peoples had changed decisively. There was no escaping from the partition of the country.
I believe that we were right in our historical approach: that we must identify with the region we are living in, cooperate with the Arab national movement and enter into a partnership with the Palestinian nation. As long as we see ourselves as a part of Europe and/or the USA, we are not able to achieve peace. And certainly not if we consider ourselves soldiers in a crusade against the Islamic civilization and the Arab peoples.
As we said then, before the partition resolution: the Palestinian people exists. Even after 60 years, in which they have suffered catastrophes which few other peoples have ever experienced, the Palestinian people clings to its country with unparalleled fortitude. True, the dream of living together in one state is dead, and will not come to life again. But I have no doubt that after the Palestinian state comes into being, the two states will find ways to live together in close partnership. The walls will be thrown down, the fences will be dismantled, the border will be opened, and the reality of the common country will overcome all obstacles. The flags of the country - the two flags of the two states - will indeed wave side by side.
The UN resolution of November 29, 1947, was one of the most intelligent in the annals of that organization. As one who strenuously opposed it, I recognize its wisdom.
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