Pres. Obama’s much publicized speech on the Middle East at the State Department on May 19th caused a stir by advocating an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based upon the pre-June 1967 borders (the so-called Green Line), with modifications in the form of “land swaps” negotiated between the parties. This has been the general framework that moderate and pro-peace Israelis and Palestinians have promoted since at least 1995, when it was realized that most West Bank settlers live in thickly-populated “settlement blocs” contiguous with the Green Line. Unfortunately, too many people (most importantly, Prime Minister Netanyahu) seized upon Obama’s statement about the pre-June ’67 lines, disregarding his call for trading territory.
That Netanyahu and so many others found this controversial, illustrates how far we’ve come from a peace agreement almost arrived at in 2008. It also indicates that the US needs to be more assertive in helping the parties finally achieve peace.
Jeremy Ben-Ami
I awoke on Friday morning, May 20, to watch Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, on Democracy Now, and I’m glad I did. He performed well under difficult circumstances, being double-teamed by anti-Israel author Norman Finkelstein and Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, who argued that international law and justice demand that Israel simply withdraw to the pre-’67 lines, without requiring an exchange of territories.
The program led me to some insights. For one thing, although he does not advocate Israel’s destruction (as many assume), Norman Finkelstein seems emotionally consumed by hostility toward Israel. (He’s suffered as a result–e.g., not obtaining tenure at a university–but he is a caustic polemicist and not a fair-minded scholar.) He–along with the very articulate and impressive Ms. Erakat–epitomizes doctrinaire and rigid thinking in insisting that Israel totally withdraw to the pre-June ’67 lines.
I would agree with them that the construction of settlements was a bad idea and probably a violation of international law. I wouldn’t be opposed in principle to a dismantling of all settlements in exchange for an ironclad peace – but we know this is not going to happen. This is neither a politically viable proposition nor even practical.
Even if Israel were willing to risk a civil war to do so, we don’t know that it’s physically capable of removing half a million people from East Jerusalem and the West Bank; it is a very small country of seven million citizens, without the large standing army that many people presume it to have (as often expressed in the ludicrous notion that Israel is the fourth largest military power in the world).
So the best hope for peace is one that involves land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians. Only ideologues (such as the other two guests) would argue against this.
After seeming a bit startled, Ben-Ami reacted calmly to a Finkelstein effort to smear J Street by associating it with the Kadima party (which he wrongly claims that J Street is “closest to”) and some objectionable statements allegedly made by its leader, Tzipi Livni, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive in Gaza. I’ve gotten this reaction from another observer:
Jeremy doesn’t hang out with the far left enough! I saw that he was slightly dumbfounded by Finkelstein, though anyone who has seen him knows that is what he does. It’s what he lives for.
My response would have been: Thanks Norman. Always great having you pose questions that try to corner the opposition and strike a blow for truth and justice. Back in the real world, J Street emphasizes a negotiated settlement because simply repeating international law or UN resolutions hasn’t actually worked – not for Israelis and not for Palestinians. Our judgment is that when it comes to international diplomacy and politics, stressing shared interests and negotiated agreements works better. Most importantly, it’s a conversation that has the support of majorities of Palestinians, Israelis, and American Jews.
Click here to link to the “Democracy Now” website, which includes a video and transcript of this program.
What a smear. NF is not consumed with hatred of Israel. He’s consumed with a sense of justice. This post is so typical of those who say the former; once again we hear the “hatred” canard trotted out, by way of avoiding the details of what NF has to say. So predictable. And so, at bottom, mendacious.
Norman Finkelstein is a classic anti-semite. And Jewish anti-semites are the worst. And on top of being an asshole he is consumed by hatred of Israel. Either that or he is channeling the mufti of Jerusalem when he was having dinner with Hitler.
Perhaps I am naive, but is Tikkun a site where calling someone whom one does not agree with an anti-semite, an asshole, and a channel for a dinner guest of Hitler is acceptable? I am to assume that Amy Goodman and her colleagues would provide a platform for an anti-semite? I find that hard to conceive.
Steven is right–we do not want people to be calling each other “anti-Semitic” or any other epithet on our website, unless one presents a coherent definition of the epithet and a conclusive proof that the person fits the definition–e.g. Demanjuk the guard at the Nazi concentration camp. We do not believe that critiquing Israel, or even denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, is sufficient to prove anti-Semitism, if for example the reason is that its existence is a violation of Jewish values or Jewish law. We don’t have to agree with the position in order to post it. But absent such a reasoned argument, we don’t want people to use our website to demean each other by throwing around personal charges at other people. One can disagree with the person’s argument as strongly as you wish, but not attack the person her or him-self. One could argue that Norman Finkelstein isn’t the best representative of those of us who support reconciliation between Israel and Palestine by pointing to his behavior in the film about him, and make that argument possibly even persuasively, but we would prefer to stay away from what Jewish law calls “lashon ha’ra”–hurtful language about individuals, unless there is an important political case to be made about their public actions or statements, and in that case, focus on the statements or the actions, NOT on the person. So Bill Pearlman’s comment about Finkelstein being “an asshole” clearly violate this principle and should not be on our website. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
Every US Administration since Lyndon Johnson in 1967 has known and accepted an outline of negotiations around the pre’67 borders with some variations from “minor rectifications” to swaps of “land for peace” that becomes hard to achieve because of an underlying disrespect for diplomacy and for a need to show goodwill on the part of the Israeli Government.
When Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza, the Israeli’s missed a golden opportunity to show a willingness to live as peaceful constructive neighbors with the Palestinians. They gratuitously blew up the towns and infrastructure they had onve created and used. A spirit of interdependence and goodwill must replace firmness and even vengeance. That is even more important than the eventual details.
That would be the palestinians Arnold.
I did not watch the program with Ben Ami and Finklestein and Noura Erakat, but I must say that any American, fully informed on the realities of the Palestine-Israel conflict, should be obsessed with the issue and enraged at the complicity of the United States in the crimes of Israel. I admire Norm Finklestein; I have read his books, which speak an unpleasant truth, and he has paid a price for his courage and candor. When I wrote editorials for the now defunct Journal Herald, the morning newspaper in Dayton, Ohio, I was silenced on this topic by the publishers, Cox Newspapers Inc.
The government of Israel and its supporters in the United States have spent 60-plus years lying about events in the Middle East, lies that have now been exposed by a generation of distinguished Israeli historians–Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Shlomo Sand. Israel is a criminal state, its existence a continuing crime against the Palestinian people, a crime against Judaism, a crime against the principles of justice and decency, and its treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian land cxontinues to be stolen in defiance of international law should be a source of embarrassment and shame to all Americans.
Harold R Piety has it right. Well said Harold.
As for Seliger’s logic (and the observer he quotes):
1) Finkelstein exhibits “doctrinaire and rigid thinking” by calling on Israel to comply with international law.
2)Dismantling settlements should be conditional on an “ironclad peace.” In other words, Israel shouldn’t dismantle the settlements because settling occupied territory is a violation of international law.
3)Dismantling settlements is not politically viable or even practical. Why is complying with international law and resettling 500,000 Jews in Israel not politically viable or practical? Is it more viable and practical to squeeze several million Palestinian refugees into the Palestinian state that might comprise 22% of Palestine?
4)Finkelstein and Erakat are “ideologues” while Ben-Ami is not. Translation: if you think Israel should comply with international law and that Palestinians have a right to self-determination in Palestine you’re an ideologue. If you think the Palestinians should continue to participate in the U.S.-Israeli puppet show called “the peace process” that’s been going on for 20 years as Israel has continued to settle and integrate the West Bank into Israel you’re…what?…not an ideologue?
5)Seliger suggests that Israel would have to physically remove the settlers and that might provoke a civil war. Not the case. Let’s say the Palestinian state is to be established January 1, 2015, just for argument’s sake. All Israel would have to do is withdraw the IDF from the West Bank and say to the settlers either you leave your subsidized homes in the West Bank for subsidized homes in Israel or, on January 1, 2015, you’ll find yourselves living in a Palestinian state. No physical coercion, no civil war. The settlers could either leave or take there chances in a Palestinian state. Problem solved.
6)Finkelstein, advocating compliance with international law and two states on the 1967 border is not living in the real world and those solutions haven’t worked (though they’ve never been tried). Ben-Ami, calling for more U.S.-sponsored “negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is living in the real world and “negotiations” are going to work despite the fact that we have a 20-year record of them not working.
7) A majority of Palestinians, Israelis and American Jews support continued “negotiations.” I think the observer will find a majority of Palestinians now supporting taking the issue to the United Nations precisely because of the failure of “negotiations.” A majority of Israelis probably do support “negotiations,” knowing them to be a perpetual cover for continued Israeli expansion and colonization, although most Israelis might actually oppose “negotiations” perceiving them as a dangerous concession to the “evil terrorists.” As for American Jews…wait a minute, they’re not looking for their own state are they!?
I actually would like to see the IDF withdraw its protection from outlying settlements, but this will never happen within the heavily populated settlement blocs contiguous with Green Line Israel. Nor will this happen in parts of East Jerusalem where 200,000 Jews now live and where ordinary (non-fanatic) Israeli Jews have resided for 30 to 40 years. Whether Mr. Dylan likes it or not, there needs to be a negotiated territorial compromise in these places. (As for Harold R. Piety, he engages in what may be called hate speech in contending that Israel’s very existence is a “crime.”)
One should not be overly rigid in applying international law. The application of any law is generally subject to discretion. Police are given some discretion when it comes to enforcing certain laws (e.g., J walking, marijuana); prosecutors exercise some discretion in deciding when to prosecute; and judges usually have the right to exercise discretion in sentencing (even leaving aside that huge matter of interpreting the law). And politics often trumps law, especially when we are dealing with sovereign states (which are armed) rather than non-sovereign individuals. Furthermore, the interpretation of international law is more contentious and therefore more problematic than law in general.
I don’t favor endless negotiations and I would like to see a very assertive international community pressure both sides to come to an agreement. Yet, like it or not, only a mutually agreed upon resolution can bring this conflict to an end in a peaceful way. It will not be decided in a court of law.
*Obviously I’m using this name because it is somewhat dangerous to criticize Israel in American society.*
Mr. Seliger, I must say your position seems rigid and ideological. “Only a mutually agreed upon resolution…It will not be decided in a court of law.” Well that’s a perfect recipe for never ending the conflict. Israel is never going to agree to anything and after the disgraceful performance of the U.S. Congress today (what was it? 29 standing ovations for Netanyahu? Israeli troops in the Jordan Valley! Applause. Jerusalem will never be divided! Applause. Hamas and al Qaeda are the same thing! Applause.) it’s clear that the United States is simply not capable of, or interested in, being anything other than Israel’s uncritical protector.
What evidence do you have that could convince any rational being that negotiations have any prospect of success? Netanyahu told Congress today that Israel doesn’t want peace. He announced that the only concession Israel might make in the future (not now of course) is to allow the Palestinians a sliver of Palestine that they can call a state if they like once Israel takes the parts of the West Bank it wants. Congress responds by applauding him as if he’s Jesus. It was a scene right out of North Korea. The Palestinians would be insane to continue within the U.S. negotiation framework.
We’re not talking about two equal parties. We’re talking about an Israeli state that is immensely powerful, that has successfully wiped most of Palestine off the map, that is continuing to integrate the West Bank into Israel, that is ruled by political parties opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, that is a nuclear power, and a state that has the “unshakeable” backing of the most powerful state in human history. What power do the Palestinians have? Their only option is to take the case international! The only thing they have is international law! Negotiating with the U.S. and Israel DOES NOT WORK. It’s over. The negotiations are a U.S.-sponsored public relations campaign, nothing more. The Palestine Papers and a million other sources reveal the contempt with which the U.S. and Israel hold the Palestinians and it’s high time this dispute is internationalized. You said yourself you’d like to see “a very assertive international community pressure both sides.” That’s what the United Nations is for.
I also have to take issue with the idea that calling Israel a crime is hate speech. It isn’t hate speech. It is the articulation of an historical fact, that Israel’s existence is due to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from what has become Israel. It is a painful fact for many Jews and supporters of Israel to accept or even acknowledge. But that doesn’t make it any less true. And Israel isn’t unique in being a crime. The U.S. was founded and developed as a result of genocide and slavery, even worse crimes. But in the case of Israel, there’s still a reasonable expectation that something can be done. The Palestinians were not exterminated like the Native Americans, they’re still there, still struggling, and they have internationally recognized rights that people like you want to write off as irrelevent.
People don’t express the idea that Israel is a crime because of hate or anti-semitism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “anger at injustice is the political expression of love.” There’s a whole lot of people the world over that are angry at the injustice that has befallen the Palestinian people. Doesn’t mean we hate Jews, we’re angry at the injustices, at the ethnic cleansing, at the occupation, at the massacres, and at the mendacity and hypocrisy of the political elites in Israel and the United States. Netanyahu said Israel is NOT a foreign occupier because of the 4,000 year connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. He’s insinuating that the “painful concession” he’s willing to make is to allow the Palestinians a couple of inches of “Eretz Israel.” I’m sorry Mr. Seliger but you need some international law to go up against that sort of rejectionism and defiance. You need an International Court of Justice and a United Nations to say, “No Mr. Netanyahu, the whole of Gaza, the whole of the West Bank, and the whole of East Jerusalem are Occupied Palestinian Territories to which Israel, as the occupying power, has no rights, only responsibilities.”
Today Netanyahu and the U.S. Congress dug there heels in and said “bring it on” (they were also saying f*** you to Barack Obama and his 1967 borders heresy). They know there’s a fight coming in September. On one side is the Palestinians, international law, and virtually every government and people in the world. On the other side is Israel and the United States in splendid isolation in support of settlements, occupation, and rejection of the long-standing international consensus of a two-state solution on the 1967 borders. If Israel doesn’t agree to a Palestinian state soon it’s looking at a prolonged anti-apartheid struggle and the probable eventual destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. The court of law solution might not be all that bad Mr. Seliger. Green Line Israel is 78% of Palestine; that’s a pretty good deal for the Jews.
Mr. Dylan’s anti-Israel argumentation illustrates how Netanyahu’s refusal to accommodate legitimate Palestinian national aspirations is as bad for Israel as it is the Palestinians; although I can debate some of Mr. Dylan’s points, much of his basic thrust is what the dovish and progressive pro-Israel camp has been arguing all along. Yet it’s precisely because of Israel’s power and its alliance with the United States, that it’s hard to see a Palestinian appeal to the UN as breaking the impasse; still, the Palestinians are welcome to try.
Dylan and other vituperative critics of Israel ignore the poisonous dynamics of how Israelis and Palestinians have interacted with each other over time. It’s tragic that the Olmert-Abbas negotiations broke down prematurely as a result of Olmert’s legal difficulties and the war with Hamas, after coming agonizingly close to success (as recently documented by Bernard Avishai in the NY Times). Also, the launching of the bloody second intifada (hard on the heels of the peace process of the 1990s) and the rise of Hamas in Gaza (following Israel’s complete withdrawal in 2005) are examples of how the Palestinians have contributed to the problem, undermining the confidence of most Israelis in making further concessions. The first led to Sharon’s election in 2001, while the second set the stage for Netanyahu’s comeback in 2009.
BIBI’S TANTRUMS : PURE THEATRICS
How can Bibi pretend to be shocked in May of 2011 when he personally cosigned this statement just last November?
“Joint statement by PM Netanyahu and US Secretary Hillary Clinton dated Nov 11 2010:
* The Prime Minister and the Secretary agreed on the importance of continuing direct negotiations to achieve our goals.
* The Secretary reiterated that “the United States believes that through good-faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.” Those requirements will be fully taken into account in any future peace agreement. The discussions between the Prime Minister and the Secretary focused on creating the conditions for the resumption of direct negotiations aimed at producing a two-state solution.
Their teams will work closely together in the coming days toward that end. The discussions between the Prime Minister and the Secretary focused on creating the conditions for the resumption of direct negotiations aimed at producing a two-state solution. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Joint_statement_PM_Netanyahu_US_Sec_Clinton_11-Nov-2010.htm ISRAEL MINISTRY of FOREIGN AFFAIRS.”
This is certainly an eye-opener from Louie Lewy. I wish that Netanyahu had been publicly (albeit diplomatically) hit with this statement, in response to his tantrums.