NO, MR. NETANYAHU! NO, AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN! DO NOT DISGRACE ALL THAT IS GOOD IN ISRAEL--BY MICHAEL LERNER   

On April 1, the day that the Netanyahu/Lieberman/Barak government coalition took office with fully thirty members of the Knesset appointed to cabinet and subcabinet positions, an Israeli poll indicated that 54 percent of Israelis were already dissatisfied with the coalition. It is a monstrosity cobbled together by the far Right, which will now try to present itself as "mainstream" or "centrist" or some other formulation to cover the fact that Netanyahu ran his campaign on opposition to a two-state solution, and the fact that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made racist attacks on Palestinians and promises to curtail their rights or even "transfer" them (we call it "racial cleansing") to Arab states as part of his campaign. Foreign Minister Lieberman's first act was to announce that all previous agreements by Israel were no longer considered binding.

Their policies will increase the number of West Bank settlers; legitimate the demeaning of not just Palestinians outside Israel but also of Arabs who are citizens of Israel; and maintain the power of religious fundamentalists to impose religious restrictions on the lives of secular Israelis, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge that Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Renewal Judaism have any legitimacy or right to do weddings or conversions. And it will be even harder for the Israeli government to hide the fact that the primary obstacle to peace is not terrorism, but Israel's insistence on holding onto territory won through military conquest-territory that provides little security but instead intensifies the anger of the world toward Israel and toward those Jews who are willing to shut their eyes to the human rights abuses committed by Israel in order to maintain its occupation of the territories it has dominated since 1967.

But while Israelis themselves were bemoaning the workings of their own electoral system-which resulted in putting the largest vote-getter, Tzipi Livni, into the opposition, while the government emerges as a coalition of special interests, none of which actually speaks for the Israeli majority-the American Jewish community's official organizations wasted little time jumping on board. These organizations' foremost concern has been how to sell Israel's new government to U.S. public.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz interviewed the head of one of the most influential local Jewish Federation branches in the United States, who declined to be named, and who admitted that the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman is "not good" in terms of public relations. He quickly added, however, that the American Jewish community must nevertheless express support for Israel's government.

"I know Lieberman, he's not an outsider. His views have support in Israel, even if the American Jewish community doesn't support him," the Jewish Federation leader said. "It's a problem that in the press he's been labeled a fascist, but we must tell the new [U.S.] administration in no uncertain terms: ‘He's a minister, talk to him.'"

Many Jewish members of the U.S. House of Representatives have also jumped to defend Israel's new government and sympathize with the challenges faced by Lieberman in the court of public opinion.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said: "I think Israel is one of the great democracies in the world, and it just had elections, and we all should celebrate it. Bibi Netanyahu is a very smart guy. And I have a lot of confidence that the prime minister of Israel will do the right thing for the people of Israel."

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said: "I think that Lieberman needs to design his rhetoric not only for the domestic Israeli market but for the world as well. It is one thing to say that everyone in public office must pledge allegiance to the flag, and it is another thing to say, ‘This particular group, Israeli Arabs, needs to take an oath of loyalty.'"

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said: "The people of Israel have the right to elect any government they like, and no other country, including the U.S., has the right to criticize them or to make negative remarks when Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East." He neglected to mention that when the Palestinians elected a Hamas government, the Bush administration and the Olmert government in Israel refused to talk to them because they didn't like the outcome of that democratic vote.

AIPAC is gearing up in its early May conference to make the ultra-right-wing government appear normal rather than acknowledge, as we do, that it is an extremist rejection of many of the values that made Israel a society deserving of respect even when its policies toward Palestinians were oppressive.

Meanwhile, many on the left will feel confirmed that Israel really is the fascist government they always said it was. We don't agree, but we and the other peace-oriented groups in the United States who support Israel even as we vigorously critique its Occupation policies will be facing severe challenges from both the apologists in the Jewish community and from the more extreme anti-Israel elements on the left. That's one reason why Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives bought an ad in the Washington Post to appear just before the AIPAC conference-to remind the media and the Obama administration that many Americans, including many American Jews, do not accept the Netanyahu government as speaking for the best interests of Israel or world Jewry, and calling for the kinds of changes in American foreign policy explained in the next few paragraphs of this editorial. It's not too late to donate to help us reprint that message in other important media venues at www.tikkun.org or by calling 510-644-1200.

The Obama-Clinton foreign policy is likely to resemble that of the Clinton years, with puffed up talks, lots of diplomacy, and few results. They do desire to calm the Muslim world, and yet wish to do that without actually putting any serious pressure on Israel to end the Occupation. But pressure wouldn't be such a great idea either, unless directed toward an appropriate goal. Worst-case scenario: Obama and Clinton push Netanyahu into agreeing to an ersatz two-state solution, namely, one in which Palestinians control a set of cities geographically separated from each other by Israeli settlements and the Israeli Army, in a West Bank criss-crossed by Israeli checkpoints and superhighways from Israel to settlements that Palestinians are prohibited from using. This scenario would still resemble the current reality, even though it would be described as a Palestinian state. It's not hard to imagine a Palestinian government so broken in spirit that it might agree to that ersatz state, with a vote in the United Nations. But such a state would be neither economically nor politically viable internally, nor would it provide a solution to the several million Palestinian refugees languishing in exile. The humiliation and powerlessness of most Palestinians would continue, and we'd soon see a return to violence by younger Palestinians who would say the state they got was not a good deal. They'd say the new state was not negotiated by representatives of the entire Palestinian people, and they'd be correct about that. Until we deal with the humiliation and oppression visited upon the Palestinian people, and until Israel, the Jewish people, and people in the United States can all do public repentance for our/their roles in co-creating (with the Palestinians) the current mess, all the political posturing will never reach the hearts of the Palestinian people and will hence have little lasting significance.

And here's one little thing the Obama administration should do, despite its political constraints: demand that an independent international judicial body be created to investigate the charges of human rights violations that have taken place in the Israeli/Palestinian struggle, separate propaganda from fact, and come up with a set of findings that may include indictments of human rights violators in the government and army of Israel, as well as in Hamas and Hezbollah.

Given the unlikelihood that the Obama administration would be willing to take the political risk of challenging the Israel Far Right Lobby and pushing Israel toward a viable Palestinian state, the one significant thing it might be able to do is convene an international conference of all the key players, including the twenty-two Arab states that recently reiterated their commitment to the Saudi peace proposal, which involves full recognition and diplomatic relations and permanent peace in exchange for a return of Israel to its 1967 borders. The conference should also include the European states and other major global players such as Russia, China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Iran. Such a conference could work if the United States agreed to help impose a solution on the parties to the conflict rather than allow the whole event to fail. It was the international community that gave legitimacy to the creation of Israel in 1947-48, and it is that same community that could have the moral suasion to resolve the conflict today. But to do so, such a conference would have to embody a spiritual progressive consciousness, in which reconciliation, repentance, atonement, healing the wounds of humiliation, and assuaging the terror that still dominates Jewish and Palestinian consciousness would have to be a major focus and a prerequisite for all political negotiations. Otherwise, there is a danger of the whole thing turning into a "bash Israel" event, which would be counterproductive: such an event would further freeze Israelis into the sort of reactive and fear-driven politics that produced the current reactionary government.

What are we, people who care deeply about Israel and Palestine, to do? Here's one proposal worthy of consideration as a way of forcing serious movement on the two-state solution: mount a one-state solution campaign demanding "one person one vote: let West Bank and Gazan Palestinians vote in Israeli elections." If such a campaign got sufficient energy in the West, it might push Israelis into being willing to participate in the kind of two-state solution that would be viable. But though such a campaign could have resonance in the West, it would likely be stifled by one important fact: most Palestinians and most Israelis don't want a single state; each group wants its own state. But as a tactical move, such a campaign might put pressure on Obama to use some of his power to get real movement toward a two-state solution. We are not endorsing this strategy, rather we are calling for a larger public discussion of it within the peace forces.

Our task as spiritual progressives is different and deeper: to remind all the sides of this struggle to keep in mind that it is only when there is real compassion shown by each side toward the other that any political solution can work. So even while we put forward our critique of Netanyahu in the American media, we simultaneously insist on trying to switch the dialogue from what to pressure Israel to do to what we in the West can do. And here we have a powerful, if difficult to achieve, solution. The most powerful thing spiritual progressives could do is build a movement that changes the way Americans think about our role in the world, so that we no longer believe that homeland security must be achieved through domination. We had hoped that Obama himself might be the vehicle for that switch, but the reasoning behind his escalation of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is going in exactly the wrong direction. We in the spiritual progressive world must insist on a radical turnaround in American thinking, so that we realize and then teach the world that security can best be obtained through generosity (that's what the Domestic and Global Marshall Plan is all about). Imagine if such an initiative began with a special focus on rebuilding Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Sderot, and Iraq. That could happen-but only if we all become involved in building the campaign for the Global Marshall Plan.

But until we succeed in creating a national debate about the fundamental paradigm governing foreign policy, we can expect to see more of the same craziness that led the United States into Vietnam and Iraq and now into escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And for the Middle East, the most likely result is that instead of forging "change" as Obama promised, the Obama team will simply slip into the existing frame of political thought. Lacking visionary strategy, the Obama administration's time will be absorbed in restraining the Israeli militarists from doing more damage; keeping them from striking at Iran, Gaza, or Lebanon; decrying their racist measures against Israeli Arabs; and dissuading them from expanding West Bank settlements. And for us who care deeply about the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians, there will be more sorrow ahead.

 

 

 

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