A modest proposal for the creation of a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[sabotabby]

It is quite simple, actually. Politicians, negotiators, and pundits are hereby forbidden from uttering the following hackneyed phrases: "painful concessions," "new realities on the ground," "Where is the Palestinian peace movement?/Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?", and "a democratic (and/or independent) Palestine and a secure Israel." Then, maybe, we'll get somewhere.

Okay, perhaps it is not the solution. But in watching the latest round of "breakthroughs," I am reminded uncomfortably of the Oslo Accords. Everyone seems to think that Obama's call for a return to the 1967 borders with the odd land swap is some sort of radical (anti-Semitic, in some circles) departure from the traditional U.S. line in these discussions, but really, it's the one thing that everyone but extremists (including myself and Benjamin Netanyahu, albeit for different reasons) seem to agree upon. As that last link puts it:

Although the use of the phrase “1967 lines” will irk many Israelis and delight Palestinians, the basic framework of an independent Palestine comprised of Gaza and the West Bank with land swaps to accommodate major Jewish settlements has long been American policy.

In fact, it's Harper, not Obama, who is Netanyahu's staunch ally this time around, (Obama's stance makes some political sense in context), drawing praise from such luminaries as convicted fraudster Conrad Black.

Harper's bluster distracts from the fact that there's really nothing new on the table, which is why May's posturing will inevitably lead to no change whatsoever. Israel under Netanyahu won't agree to the 1967 borders; the various factions within Palestine won't agree to a truncated and militarily neutered state, and two states divided on 1967 borders is likely demographically not feasible in the long term. The issue is not ultimately where the borders are adjusted to; the most perfectly drawn map in the world will not compensate for fundamental imbalances of power and resources, the refugee issue that no one wants to talk about, and the question of whether a state can be both "Jewish" and "democratic," especially once its non-Jewish population rises to equal its Jewish population.

As for the Palestinian Gandhi, lately we've seen what happens when Palestinians adopt—rightly so, by the way—the strategies of non-violence. A clash with the IDF at the Syrian border has left 20 dead. A very one-sided "clash,: since according to reports, the closest the protesters had to weapons were some rocks; if someone else were doing the shooting, we would call that a "massacre."

Here's an interesting editorial from the Guardian on non-violence in Palestine and India. (Is anyone talking about Kashmir anymore? I guess not.) And another one from Al Jazeera about the rhetorical use of children.

I actually don't think that peace is impossible, despite the overwhelming negativity in this post. Quite the opposite; I think it's inevitable, but only after Netanyahu's generation dies or retires out of politics, opening the way for pragmatists, and only after the continued entanglement of Jewish and Arab populations erodes the convenient fantasy that maps are the solution to the problem. One can certainly understand, though, given the recent violence, that no one wants to wait that long. Accordingly, I propose as a first step the purging of convenient and meaningless catchphrases from the political vocabulary in favour of a frank assessment of what is actually going on over there.

Comments

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

I think the solution (for the usa)-is to mind our fuckin business.

Dont help israel, dont help the arabs, dont do anything at all.

[sabotabby]

That makes a certain amount of sense. We/you guys tend to make things worse with every intervention.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

Im not jewish. I dont give a fuck about israel. Why do i have to swallow all this "israels always right" bullshit?

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Eh, I'm Jewish and I give about 1/10 of a fuck about Israel and I definitely don't think they're always right. The funny thing is I sometimes think, as a leftist, "why do I have to swallow all this 'Palestine is always right' bullshit?" I sometimes wonder if it's the most prolonged session of bilateral wrongness in history.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

The problem is you cant have any rational debate about it here.

If you suggest anything that isnt 100% pro israel, people go batshit crazy.

[sabotabby]

No, I know. Israelis manage a more civil debate than Americans.

[marrythebed.livejournal.com]

My Israeli relatives are as liberal as Israelis get and they are far less capable of anything approaching civil debate, which is the experience the majority of my born-and-raised in Israel comrades have with their fellow citizens...

[sabotabby]

It may be that all of the Israelis I know are activists. But I think you see far more variety of opinion on Israel in Ha'aretz than you do in, say, the National Post.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

There's an intrinsic sampling bias involved in talking to Israelis who don't live in Israel. Once somebody takes the step of yeridah (opposite of aliyah), they've done something that, from the standpoint of hardcore Zionism, is regarded as near-treason. Their attitudes toward the State may vary--they may feel committed to it but guilty about their personal choice, or they may have left because they realize to one extent or another what a fucked-up place it is, but if someone leaves it means they've already given up on a key tenet of the dominant ideology.

This selection bias is especially so for those of us who are leftists, since the only Israelis who will talk to us in something resembling a civilized, honest tone, unless like marrythebed we are related to them, are the ones who realize to one extent or another the fact that it is a fucked-up place. And it is even more so the case when one does not speak or understand Hebrew. People will often express themselves differently in English than in Hebrew.

When I was there, I got to be a bit undercover. I understand Hebrew well enough to know most of what is being said around me. But I don't speak it well enough for Israelis to think that I understand. I really got to be a fly on the wall. Even Meretz voters who are related by blood or marriage to known commies will come out with statements so astonishing in their blatant racism that, transposed to a North American context, one would only expect them from Tea Partiers. The atmosphere on the radio, the television, in the tabloid press, and in the cafe-table conversation of strangers is even more vicious.

You can't judge the tenor of Israeli political discourse from Ha'aretz any more than you can judge that of the U.S. from The Nation. The fact that Yitzhak Laor or Gideon Levy or Amira Hass can publish in a national newspaper is a sign only of the fact that, in a country where 95% of the population belonging to the dominant nationality is to one extent or another bonkers, not everyone is. Which is a hopeful sign, but not a promising one.

What's worse is that, if anything, the younger generation skews more to the right, not less. "We have always been at war with Eurasia" is a message that has had its impact.

The revolts and revolutions in the Arab world will have their counter-impact. They already are. But the impact on the consciousness of Israeli Jews can, in the most hopeful scenario, be compared to that of the drunk who, finding himself on the edge of a cliff, is suddenly sobered up by an adrenaline surge. Whether he can stumble away from the brink in time is almost a matter of chance.

[sabotabby]

Fair enough. I don't live in either country, and I'm talking discourse, not overall popular opinion (which is truly terrifying, as you obviously know).

[marrythebed.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you are very handy to have around :)
I was coming back here to respond and (though never would have been a hundredth as articulate as you) was going to mention both the Ha'aretz fallacy and the fact that they feel way more comfortable speaking like that to Israelis, but you've already said it all and very thoroughly. Thank you, D!

And what I wasn't going to say but will now strongly second is that, in opposition to what you (sabs) say in a different comment down the page, it is definitely true that the current generation is far to the right of its previous.

Interestingly, my INSANELY reactionary and racist (and patriotic) Israeli cousin who moved to Amsterdam for college three years ago is already quite noticeably less so and is even open to criticisms of Israel.

[sabotabby]

It looks like what's needed is Birthright in reverse. :)

[marrythebed.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I love that idea!

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

*nods*

It would be a good start.

I'm vaguely optimistic about the likely UN statehood recognition in September. It won't change things on the ground, but I think it will add to Israeli (and US) isolation, and the general sense of inevitability as to where things have to end up.

I'm not sure 2 states is impossible. Part of the solution would probably have to be some settlements remaining within a Palestinian state. They'd have to fundamentally change their nature - they couldn't remain exclusively-Jewish fortresses pouring out sewage into the neighbouring Palestinian land and cutting down their olive trees, but that would be true of a 1-state solution as well.

Either way though, as you say, it will take a few more electoral cycles at least before there's an Israeli government ready to contemplate any sort of meaningful solution.

[sabotabby]

Part of the solution would probably have to be some settlements remaining within a Palestinian state.

I can't see this working, unless it's a means to destabilize whatever Palestinian state they finally establish.

Either way though, as you say, it will take a few more electoral cycles at least before there's an Israeli government ready to contemplate any sort of meaningful solution.

Definitely. I think the political will of both Israelis and Palestinians is coming around much faster than the Israeli government in terms of creating some sort of compromise. I didn't actually think Netanyahu would be around this long. He must be around 200 years old now; can't he go play golf or something?

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Netanyahu is such an incredible opportunist. Not sure how old he is. His father is like 100 or so. (Ultra-extreme Zionist, believed by some to be one reason Bibi won't make concessions so long as daddy's alive, though that sounds like a convenient excuse).

Yeah, one analysis of opinion polls suggests that, while if you put the '67 borders as a question on its own, you get mixed results as to whether Jewish Israelis support it, but when you put it as part of an overall settlement, you get clearly more supporting it.

But there's currently no serious electoral political voice willing to tell Israelis "This is not only possible, it is necessary".

[bluegargantua]

What kinds of effective Palestinian non-violent action do you envision? I feel like most non-violent actions are internal affairs where an oppressed group takes non-violent action to make a society more aware of its own problems (sit-ins, strikes, etc.).

In this case, what do the Palestinians do that Israel can't ignore? A huge protest march will pretty much get turned away at the gates (possibly turned away with machine gun fire to prevent an "invasion"). Palestinians can complain all they want and as long as they stay in their little ghetto, it doesn't seem like Israel needs to care.

later
Tom

[sabotabby]

I am not sure of the point you're trying to make.

[bluegargantua]

Hmmm...sorry if I was unclear. I'm simply trying to imagine what an effective Palestinian non-violent protest looks like and I'm having trouble.

If Palestinians demonstrate within their territory, Israel almost certainly wouldn't care. People non-violently protest American actions all over the world and we rarely take notice of it (unless it turns violent).

If Palestinians demonstrate within Israel, to bring their complaints front and center, they're likely to meet stiff, even violent resistance. And the protest has to allow Palestinians to get into Israel, which either won't happen at all for large groups or be quietly diverted/hushed up for smaller groups/individuals.

Theoretically, Palestinians could encourage a sort of economic isolation of Israel as a form of non-violent protest or a form of non-violent leverage, but even if they could convince long-standing allies to sever economic ties (highly unlikely), the Israelis would almost certainly dig in their heels.

I'm mostly trying to get a wider view on the options, but if I have a point it's that Israel has never been very interested in concessions to the Palestinians no matter what tactics have been applied. Although perhaps you're right in that Israeli attitudes will change after Netanyahu's generation leaves power.

My ramblings and $1.25 gets you a bottled water
Tom

[sabotabby]

Hmm, yeah. Now I see what you're saying. The problem is mainly that Palestinians hold zero leverage over Israelis. They can't win militarily, and they can't bring about any sort of economic pressure on their own, which puts them in a unique situation. Nor can they appeal to the conscience of the Israeli government, because it doesn't seem to have one. It's this very conundrum that made suicide bombing look so attractive for awhile.

I think probably the best option is a combination of international moral and economic pressure—which is possible, I think—and local cooperation with emerging democracies, if that's the way the Arab Spring develops. But I don't really know what that would look like either.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

As for the Palestinian Gandhi, lately we've seen what happens when Palestinians adopt—rightly so, by the way—the strategies of non-violence. A clash with the IDF at the Syrian border has left 20 dead. A very one-sided "clash,: since according to reports, the closest the protesters had to weapons were some rocks; if someone else were doing the shooting, we would call that a "massacre."

YES. Thank you. I get sick to my stomach every time a "fair-minded" (and almost always white) liberal says that they'd be more sympathetic to the Palestinians, or that the Palestinian resistance would be more effective if they'd just sit there and get machine gunned down or ran over by tanks. Which is part of the whole reason I soured on the peace movement* in the mid-00s, a lot of it is just built around appropriated myths about the American civil rights movement or Ghandi, in a kind "oh geez I hope peace happens someday" fashion that's all of convenient for global northerners to adopt without really recognizing how the unequal distribution of power and wealth that they directly benefit from causes all of this.**

*In America at least.

**I don't know if you're still doing peace work, but please don't take that as a swipe against your activism, I know you don't think that way. I'm mostly just ranting against some of the more middle class, '60s veteran activists I worked with.

[sabotabby]

**I don't know if you're still doing peace work, but please don't take that as a swipe against your activism, I know you don't think that way. I'm mostly just ranting against some of the more middle class, '60s veteran activists I worked with.

I wouldn't take it as such, given that I have plenty of complaints about those same attitudes. :)

The problem with non-violence as an ideological strategy is that, in violent situations, someone generally does get killed. It can be the oppressor, or the oppressed, or sometimes both. Prevailing on the oppressor's goodwill–or the goodwill of white North Americans—doesn't generally work, which is why an effective non-violent strategy generally has to be paired with some other sort of pressure, usually economic. (Which I think is the best option as it minimizes reprisals and bloodshed.) Fortunately, that is increasingly happening.

White liberal North Americans, though, seem to really like to see brown people being gunned down for a good cause, while neglecting the role of economic pressure and the threat of violence in making any given non-violent struggle actually effective.

* In the case of Indian independence and the defeat of the South African apartheid system.