israel/palestine
19 Feb 2009
An Israel Of The Mind
Do the results of Israel's recent election really point to significant changes in the Jewish state?
According to most regional analysts, the results of Israel’s recent election signal a profound shift to the right. But a deeper reading reveals a more pedestrian reality.
Although Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right Yisrael Beiteinu has become the third most popular party in the Knesset — their racist views on Arabs threaten to split the state apart and even Zionists worry the Moldovan immigrant will threaten America’s relationship with the Jewish state — I agree with the Swiss-based Israeli journalist Shraga Elam, who wrote last week:
"The bottom line is that the new Israeli government can be expected more or less to continue the line of the old one, ie of letting the so-called two-state option stay open while acting against it and slowly escalating measures against the Palestinians."
We are set for more white noise about negotiations, a peace process and a "moderate" versus "extremist" Palestinian leadership. The man who is likely to be prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, talks tough about bombing Iran and not withdrawing from occupied Palestinian land, but he may face a considerable hurdle in the person of US President Barack Obama, who, unlike his predecessor George W Bush, may not accept an intransigent Israeli leadership.
I’ve long argued that Obama’s interest or chances of creating real change between Israel and Palestine is negligible at best — talk of "change" convinces only those who are satisfied with beautifully crafted rhetoric. But the new American Middle East envoy George Mitchell may choose to get tough on the ever-expanding settlement project and threaten to withhold billions of dollars of guaranteed loans if the Jewish state even dares to expand colonies under the guise of "natural growth". Mitchell’s 2001 report on settlements signalled an unwillingness to accept any expanded colonies.
Such important — if modest — pressure, would be welcome but ignores the elephant in the room, namely the key role of Hamas and its integral position in the Palestinian national struggle, a reality ignored by all major Israeli political parties. These points are elaborated in journalist Paul McGeough’s forthcoming book on Hamas, Kill Khalid.
The recent Gaza war remains an unresolved sore. Leading American newspapers like the Los Angeles Times are investigating the possibility of Israeli war crimes. An Israeli Defence Forces source told Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz on the weekend that, "it’s clear to us that in a small portion of the combat sectors immeasurable damage was caused, and that is very difficult to justify from a legal perspective, particularly if such justifications are called for in legal proceedings with international organisations". In other words, Israel’s disproportionate use of force was a war crime.
Frustratingly for the pro-war lobby, Hamas remains in power in Gaza and through Egypt has negotiated a short-term truce with the Jewish state which is yet to go into effect. A Guardian journalist reported last week that the smuggling tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, allegedly destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, remain largely intact and are daily transporting essential goods.
Simply put, the war achieved none of its stated aims and decimated an already suffering people. An aid convoy, led by maverick politician George Galloway, left from London for Gaza on the weekend to make this very point.
In such grim times, it takes a brave (or foolish?) publication to declare the possibility of peace in the region. The Economist did just that last week, claiming that liberal Jews in America might pressure Obama to pursue less militant policies towards the Palestinians. Perhaps, but thus far more dovish groups have wielded little political power — although J Street, an alternative to the hardline lobby AIPAC, generated heat in January for daring to challenge Israel’s war against Gaza. J Street remains a conventional believer in a two-state solution and there is no evidence to date that it has the ability to shape American foreign policy.
Such wishful thinking aside, the largely hidden relationship between Israel and Washington warrants closer attention. A recent Jerusalem Post interview with Bush administration deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams — conducted by his sister-in-law, incidentally — destroys any illusions that the US is a disinterested third party. When asked why Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, Abrams is blunt: it was a deliberate ploy to distract the world from the Geneva Accord peace initiative, which would have established a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank.
He explains:
"I’ve also heard the ‘poison pill’ theory, according to which Sharon did not believe that, given this opportunity to rule Gaza, the Palestinians would prove to be able to have a democracy that would show all Israelis that if Israel then pulled out of the West Bank, they’d be getting a peaceful, friendly, democratic neighbour. This theory goes that Sharon thought the Palestinians would blow it, and that this was a way of showing the world that a two-state solution had to be delayed until such time as the Palestinians could govern themselves properly. If that was his theory, it seems to have worked."
Abrams conveniently ignores his central role in funding and supporting an attempted coup against Hamas in 2007 after the Islamist party beat the American proxy Fatah in free and fair 2006 elections.
In this toxic environment, it is often very difficult to conduct a rational public debate about the issues. I encountered a rare exception a few days ago during the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Many American Jews live in Bali and some of them approached me to explain their shame over Washington’s uncritical support of Israel’s occupation after I spoke about the vexed questions of Israel/Palestine and Jewish identity.
After a number of questions about the Jewish state’s chances of longevity, the reality of the West Bank colonies and the demographics that show Palestinians outnumbering Jews in Palestine and Israel within 10 years, I was struck by the desire in the audience of Indonesians and expatriates for rational and respectful discussion. A number of people informed me that they felt frustrated with the lack of honesty in the Western media towards this issue. What can we do as Jews, I was asked.
Indonesia maintains no official relations with Israel and a number of prominent Muslim clerics during the recent Gaza war called for recruits to fight the Israelis in Palestine. I was constantly told that the vast majority of Indonesians don’t regard Israel as one of their key concerns, but that it would be very hard to find any prominent locals willing to stand up and defend Israeli behaviour. This is mirrored in every Muslim nation on earth.
The response of one woman in the audience struck me particularly. She was in Palestine during Israel’s birth in 1948 and chastised me for not "talking about the history of the Jewish state and its tiny position in the region". She couldn’t understand why I was picking on the "one democracy" in the Middle East and didn’t focus more on the autocracies surrounding it.
This friendly but patronising lady spoke of an Israel that doesn’t exist; an Israel in her mind. She acknowledged the difficulties of the conflict and damned the post-1967 occupation as "the country’s biggest mistake", but refused to see that it was the very corrupting nature of the colonies that was contributing to Israel’s downfall.
For her, and so many Jews I meet, their romanticised notions of the Jewish state are removed from realities on the ground. Israel is a concept, a noble idea that must survive above all. This last point is a belief that will not be swayed by facts or reason. Israel’s election merely confirmed this trend. Until Diaspora Jews loudly raise their voices and condemn actions committed in their name, the Jewish state’s relationship with its neighbours will remain toxic.
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Did anyone else find this passing strange?
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064798.html
“Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be one of the three laureates of the Dan David Prize for 2009, awarded annually by Tel Aviv University.
Each of the laureates will receive a $1 million prize, 10 percent of which is contributed to 20 doctoral and post-doctoral scholarships.
Blair was selected to receive the prize in leadership for what the judges described as “his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict.”
Does anyone hear that one quacking like a duck with a glued bill. Bribe! bribe! bribe!
Another good piece Anthony. this says it all:
“For her, and so many Jews I meet, their romanticised notions of the Jewish state are removed from realities on the ground. Israel is a concept, a noble idea that must survive above all. This last point is a belief that will not be swayed by facts or reason.”
The greatest difficulty is the level of denial with which most Israelis and all of their supporters live which ranges from delusional dysfunction to the criminally psychotic. Insanity cannot be swayed by facts or reason it must be addressed with levels of control which mean the individual or the state is not a threat to themselves or others.
Boycotts and sanctions are the only way to deal with a deranged State.
Graeme F if you are going to imply that those rich Israelis (read Jews) tossed their moolah around to buy Tony Blair a little gift “Bribe! bribe! bribe!” at least get your ducks lined up straight. The prizes are awarded not by “Israel” or even “Jews”, but by a sovereign government that does indeed collaborate with the Dan David Prize. It is the wicked French government, through the Ministry of Culture. The French Minister of Culture, Mme Christine Albanel, sits on the Board of the Dan David Prize.
In other news it may not be that long before we see Mr Blair receiving an award from an Arab country for his peace-making efforts. Probably another large bribe financed by those wicked J***.
[Furtively looks about…]
“Is there ANY other newsfeed than Al Jazeera in this NewMatilda weblog?”
[Checks under portal…] “Nope! nothing there¿”
“Good then - Al Jazeera it is!”
“Harumphhh!” [ adjusts gonad with a fork…] “That’s rich!”
“Hmmm …psst - in the interest of an academic non-partisanship News Africa has worldview and a balanced newsfeed too! Besides the grammar is as delicious as Pravda.ru - too/as well”
“Just a suggestion…”
“But then [wipes a distressed sweat from brow ] biases are so truly rather darn hard to come by?”
“Well then - we should have one!” dunno4sure¿
I carry no candles for the State of Israel, but isn’t the suggestion that Israelis have a monopoly on ‘romanticised notions of the state… removed from realities on the ground’ a bit rich? Doesn’t every nationalistic state (including the UK, US and Oz all to varying degrees at different times) have the same gap between notions and reality? That’s what nationalism is about. And sure, it gets in the way of knowing your enemies and making rational decisions, but once again, Israel has no monopoly on that problem.
Can anyone decipher this sentence?
“Until Diaspora Jews loudly raise their voices and condemn actions committed in their name, the Jewish state’s relationship with its neighbours will remain toxic.”
Decisive opinion combined with appalling, hilarious ineptitude. Antony Loewenstein - a bumbling agent for the good guys, who weekly foils the plans of the evil cabal bent on world domination.
Would you believe? Antony Loewenstein the Maxwell Smart of freelance journalism.
Is IBerlin just another name for alphacrucis? Very much the same (bent) mind frame.
But the very idea of Tony Blair being awarded for anything is an offence against Nature, whoever conceived of the idea, or whoever sits on the board. Much better Tony Blair be made to face War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity trial in The Hague. Tony Blair should be in gaol, and for many, many years, for the Evil he has done.
And I guess, a lot of that Evil has been done on behalf of the Jews in Palestine, in cahoots with another Very Evil Man, GWBush. So now he is being rewarded for his EVIL, by the very people and countries he worked with to kill and maim and disperse so many millions of innocent men, women and children, in both Iraq and in Palestine.
So what is new!
I think Antony is ‘on the ball’, as usual. The Diaspora Jews, in the main, have very outdated ideas of what israel used to be, or had ideas of being, firmly fixed in their brains, and only possibly death will cleanse them. The idea of giving the Jews of Europe a land, but someone else’s land, was wrong-headed in the first place, but the continued paying and bolstering to keep these Religious Jews in control of Palestine, has to cease. The only possible result will have to be a non-religious State of Palestine, wherein those who can and will co-exist will continue to live, and those who can not accept this must move on, or die. Hard words, but I think true. But the Diaspora Jews, especially those in the USA who control the American congress and all pollies and foreign policies of the USA, have to be made to either change their minds (unlikely) or be confronted and sidelined. I very much doubt that Obama has either the guts or the inclination to do anything. If he were to do anything to upset these people, it is very likely that he would be assassinated.
I see another Democrat Senator has wandered into Gaza seeking ‘knowledge’, but also seemingly refuses to even think about talking to the people who were elected to rule the people there, by fully democratic election (Hamas). Will someone please tell these pollies that they look utterly ridiculous, and to pull their stupid, gutless heads out of the sand. Or do they really want this War between Christianity and Islam to continue on forever, because Yankee pollies and their European boot-lickers just can not see the trees for the forest, and are so totally beholden to a criminal, racist rogue regime in israel. Dazza.
IBerlin I stand by my accusation. Since even Blind Freddy can see that there have been no “lasting solutions to areas in conflict.” then the award must have been made for other reasons.
Quack.
Tel Aviv University.
Quack.
Immediatly attacked by fanatical supporters of a regime guilty of war crimes.
Quack.
Now waddle off and spread your poison elsewhere.
Israel is not a state and it most certainly is not a jewish state. Shlomo Sand quickly disabuses us all of that absurdity in his book “Who invented the jews” - it is now being translated into English - but he broadly has discovered that the “torah” was written and then turned into a religion which Gilad Atzmon states has not one history book written about it.
Because it does not actually have any meaning or beliefs.
20% of the “Israel” is still Palestinian muslim, christian and druze do “Israel” is not a state of jews except in the most racist and feeble of minds.
Shame on you Antony.
Now in the 1947 resolution 181 the jews were offered in a non-binding and illegal resolution 56% of ancient Palestine. As Sand has also discovered they are the natives of the land and the invented religion and cult called “jews” came from Mesopotamia and not Palestine.
The British abstained from the vote for this partition and the Palestinians had no vote at all.
Fancy having any world body today try to give 56% of Australia to another people because a third people were persecuting them?
Can’t? Nor can I.
What Israel is is nothing much. People and houses with no right to be there and no consitution.
They make any law they want to excude Palestinians from their own land.
They torture, kill and maim and persecute and have done for over 100 years with utter immunity.
Tear down the walls and force the morons to live with the rest of the world and their neighbourss.
I agree Dazza, it’s as though alpha fulfilled his quota and handed over to IBerlin.
Can anyone decipher his/her sentence? “Decisive opinion combined with appalling, hilarious ineptitude.”
I thought the zionists were better at explaining themselves… Regardless, it’s not worth the time or energy trying understand these fundamentalists. They are simply wrong.
Yet another thought jerker by Anthony, a true mensch.
Has anybody been following the furore between Herr Alan Dershowitz and Hampshire college which has recently started a campaign to boycott Israel?
Rockjaw,
I gather quite a few universities are now involved and the movement is growing which is all to the good.
In his response to iberlin’s heavy handed criticism of his anti-semitism, GraemeF uses the line no “lasting solutions to areas in conflict.” This is almost a word for word lift from Reinhardt Heidrich’s minutes taken at a conference held in Wannsee, near Berlin, on January 20, 1942 where the Germans embarked on a policy called the “Final Solution.” So, GraemeF, who the hell are you?
From experience the best advice I can give to fellow posters on New Matilda is DO NOT GOAD THIS FASCIST TROLL.
If you’ve spent any time in chat rooms, bulletin boards or posting on Usenet you may have already come across one of these troublesome creatures. Ignore them. The worst thing you can do is to try and engage them in rational debate as this only encourages them to hang around.
Reinhardt Heidrich and “final solution” are such ironic analogies which JLA makes.
Despite the obvious parallels between Nazism, Apartheid and Zionism, gentiles are forced into a “politically correct” trap from young as they are taught to yield to emotional pressure through our school systems and media to be very sensitive to Israeli politics as a proxy for genuine Jewish suffering, even if it means a blindness to the obvious similarites between zionism and Nazism.
Gentiles have to fight a deeply entrenched Pavlovian conditioning constructed by our numerous zionist “censors” who attempt to make those gentiles feel ethically and emotionally inadequate and intimidated. Who is GraemeF? Probably one of those rare breed of gentiles who has decided not to permit himself to be emotionally blackmailed any longer - good on him.
Zionists care for neither Jew nor gentile, they care only for zionism. Society will have to become aware of the structures used by our zionists to effect this dark control over our cultures and to intervene on behalf of both Jew and gentile to free Jews from that inner darkness and Palestinians from racist murdering zionist genocidalism.
This is good to see.
To the President of the State of Israel and the Director of the Yad Vashem Memorial
Remove Our Grandmother’s Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem
By MICHAEL NEUMANN
and OSHA NEUMANN
Following the example of Jean-Moise Braitberg, we ask that our grandmother’s name be removed from the wall at Yad Vashem. Her name is Gertrud Neumann. Your records state that she was born in Kattowitz on June 6, 1875 and died in Theresienstadt.
http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann02202009.html
The fact that such divisive arguments erupt in these posts between jews,non-jews, hotntot indians & whatever is testimony to what Amos Oz that astute somewhat leftist, but centralist by today’s standards, Israeli author says.
He is right on the money when he says ” Israelis are divided…their hearts, souls and minds are divided, because they know they are never going to ever be one big happy family with the Palestinians.”
Like them, they are neither happy and they certainly are not a family.
So the two state solution is like dividing the property in to a semi-detached house. Then there can be a degree of privacty and autonomy that does not involve the other neighbour.
Failing that, The whole of Israel, Gaza and West bank could be considered one big jail with different holding yards.
That way Obama, Blair, Sarkozy can be the wardens=prisoners and the neighbouring middle eastern countries can make up their minds if they want to go down the track to fundamentalist islamic dictatorships or also fight (imprison themselves) against the Jihadists.
Peace in the middle east, yeah right.
If any one is delusional it is Mr Loewenstein, just because he is jewish does’nt entitle him to judenheid.
Shalom Tzvi
Revilo,
I disagree. I think Israelis are as intelligent and pragmatic as anyone else. The entire concept of a Jewish state is backward and racist. I think Jews, Muslims, everyone could live happily together in one state. More to the point, the colonisation of Palestine has made it inevitable.
From my family’s anecdotal experience AL is right my own Jewish daughter full of the Diaspora romantic notions indoctrinated into her by her maternal grand parents (neither of whom have been out of
Aus)went to Israel to live and help it flourish.
However after 4 years she came back with tales of rampant racism in some areas of Jerusalem. Secret armed networks of settlers obsessed with expansionist and racial superiority beliefs. Tales of blatant racial intimidation of the Israeli Arab and how difficult it is to get the police to act especially since these police are part of the Jewish community. She now has turned her back on Israel’s “struggles” as being “largely of its own doing”…her profession… Middle Eastern Historian. Now she teaches in Aussie high schools. (Not history)
If the truth be known neither side wants a two-state solution. Its obvious that Israel and Fatah are both proxies of the US, while Hizbullah and Hamas are proxies of Iran. And so inevitably this Middle Eastern power struggle is between the US and Iran.
This amounts to a political stalemate likely to end in a collision course as both Israel and Palestine defy UN Resolutions for a two state solution, especially while the powerful background players US and Iran keep interfering.
As Gazans continue the firing of rockets into Israel and Israel continues building settlements in the West Bank both sides are defying UN Resolutions.
These diametrically opposed, God-given paths are not likely to be renounced in the near future by religious fundamentalists from either side, and will probably intensify as Iran and the US continue to involve and invest their resources and expertise into their claim for the right and power to control the Holy Lands through proxies.
Non-compliance with UN Resolutions by both Israel and Palestine is only one of many international problems that must be addressed by the UN, as well as a lowering of the expectation for either nation of the Holy Lands to renounce their religious and cultural beliefs in the name of democratic secularism.
Sorry Denise, under international law, the Geneva Convention and United Nations resolutions it is Israel as the occupying nation which has full responsibility for the welfare of those it holds under occupation. All violence is therefore Israel’s responsibility. Israel, as the occupier and coloniser, also has moral responsibilities to those it oppresses. The Palestinians are powerless and, as an occupied and colonised people they cannot do anything to change the situation, except resist.
To talk about ‘both sides’ not wanting a two state solution is farcical when one side, the Palestinians, has not one shred of power to achieve anything.
That’s like blaming Aborigines for the wrongs inherent in Australia’s foundation and trying to shove half the blame onto them.
Would you have demanded equal blame and responsibility of the French Resistance and the German occupiers? Of course not. Why then the Palestinians? You have no answer of course because there is no answer to this idiotic and unjust stance.
Why isn’t there a revolt of taxpayers in Europe.
They have spent billions on poor Gaza’s infrastructure only to see it destroyed by Israel. Make the culprits pay and pay through the nose for their wanton destruction. Seize their assets including their civil aeroplanes until reparations are made.
It is about time a ninety per cent vote on a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly over-ruled any veto in the Security Council.
Your international star is calling, Mr. Rudd.!