Sao Paulo, Brazil – March 2009 may come to be seen as a critical month in the ending of the international community's isolation of Hamas. Finally engaging Hamas would spell the end of hypocritical Western policy and bring the peace process in line with the realities of the Middle East.
First, a group of high-level US foreign policy officials, past and present, went public with their recommendation that the Obama administration talk to Hamas. Coincidentally, European politicians who visited Hamas officials in Syria about the same time echoed that view.
Typically, meetings between European lawmakers and Hamas leaders are conducted discretely, if not entirely in secret. Now, the trips have begun to be publicized: In March there were trips by a cross-party group of British and Irish members of parliaments, as well as their counterparts from Greece and Italy.
There was also an open letter to President Obama, published on March 10, and signed by more than 120 experts and academics. The letter urged a change of US policy in the Middle East. Significantly, the signatories advocated an end to the US "fear of Islamist parties coming to power," and also urged prioritizing human rights over supporting the region's autocrats.
Originally, the rationale behind isolating Hamas (a social and political movement condemned by many in the West as a terrorist group) was to weaken the organization and force a change in policy vis-a-vis the armed struggle and Israel, while simultaneously supporting the Ramallah-based leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. The international boycott emerged in parallel with the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip that began post-Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006. The aim: Punish the civilian population into rethinking their choice, and make a Hamas government untenable.
But the attempt to sideline Hamas has not worked. Hamas is no weaker for the cold-shoulder from diplomats, and, in fact, has been able to use the siege to deflect criticism of its policies in the Gaza Strip. The West Bank "moderates" dominated by Fatah have little to show for their negotiations with Israel; rather, the colonization of the occupied territories continues.
Consequently, the anti-Hamas united front is starting to crack. European politicians have been independently visiting Hamas leaders in Syria, and urging a rethink in the position of the so called Quartet of the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia. The appeals to Obama represent this shift in approach, reflective of both how the current policy has failed, and how engaging Hamas will be beneficial.
Ending the isolation of Hamas would strike a blow to hypocritical foreign policy – a small but important step toward changing the way the US and international community relate to Middle East politics. After Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman's success at the polls, Quartet envoy Tony Blair said that "We've got to work with whoever the Israeli people elect"– a courtesy not yet offered to the Palestinians.
Israel's propagandists have tried to use Hamas's increased power in recent years to their benefit by placing the movement at the centre of the debate, presenting the group as an extremist, Iran-sponsored existential threat to the Jewish state. Yet Hamas has only been around for 20 years; Israel conquered the occupied territories in 1967, while Palestinians were originally expelled from their homes more than 60 years ago.
Thus to engage Hamas is to acknowledge that the movement is not integral to the conflict, but neither is it peripheral nor ignorable. It has grown into a powerful social and political force, with a tendency toward prioritizing the pragmatism of political power. The oft-cited Charter – rightly condemned as anti-Semitic, but penned in 1988 by one person – has become increasingly insignificant; the discourse of ceasefires, truces, and national liberation typically trumps inflexible religious doctrine.
But engaging Hamas is fundamentally about accepting (perhaps uncomfortable) facts. Hamas was democratically elected and continues to enjoy considerable support from Gazans. It's important to ask not just why it got such substantial backing in 2006, but why it continues to despite the ongoing Israeli siege and the devastation wreaked in the December war, as well as the cases of human rights abuses by Hamas personnel.
The lesson is that the Palestinian people saw through the flaws of the international community's approach to the conflict long before a few voices in foreign capitals started raising questions about the wisdom of isolating Hamas. In the Middle East, the international community's self-defined moderate/extremist division is but a transparent charade.
The peace process game, the vacuous endorsements of a two-state solution as Israel absorbs the occupied territories, the lack of will to hold Israel to account – this is the fuel for Hamas support, and no amount of "isolation" can change the profound unpopularity of current US and Quartet policies among Palestinians.
Ending the boycott would not be an endorsement of Hamas, but an end to the obtuse – and damaging – refusal to recognize reality.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Amid the escalating violence, and the 60-year-long status quo, there are certain fundamental questions that need to be asked.
Are there certain values and absolute foundations that make resistance in general, and against Zionism specifically, a moral and humane necessity? What is the framework for nonviolent resistance, and how is it connected to these values? What is the ultimate end goal of the struggle? Is it returning the land and some rights to the indigenous Palestinian population, or can it lead to "solutions" that include acceptance of Zionism or even its right to exist?
Millions of persons hope for a chance to participate in this noble struggle, yet can't find the medium in which they can contribute. This is where there is an important role for a group of "movers" to create the vehicles for individual and collective contributions within the above framework and mobilizing the hitherto wasted support to achieve measurable results.
The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions defines Zionism as: "a global, political, ideological movement that aims to return the land of 'Israel' to the Jewish people," but this definition, besides its racist flavor (as it doesn't mention or consider an entire people who were inhabiting that land), doesn't tell the complete story. It might be important to mention that UN Resolution 3379 of 10 November 1975, after a prolonged discussion of the mechanisms of racist regimes, their alliances and human rights violations, decided that Zionism was equivalent to racism (the General Assembly revoked this decision by resolution 84/86 in 1991 after the advance of "peace negotiations").
To properly understand Zionism we cannot rely only on how it defines itself or how the dictionary defines it, as indicative as those might be. We must also look at the behaviors and practices that have characterized Zionism from the beginning of the movement and that were given intellectual and ideological rationales, fundamentally related to the materialization of Zionism through a state.
Zionism could not have effected its program without the ethnic cleansing of the people that inhabited what it called Greater Israel. Forced displacement, terrorism, murder and devaluation of the most basic human rights were justified because of the complete belief in the right of the Jewish "race" which consequently becomes racially "supreme" because Zionism claims that this "race" possesses an undeniable and superior "right" in this land.
The existence of Zionism, and its continuation as it is, constitutes a legitimization of all the previously mentioned crimes, co-existence with the logic of power, and the acceptance of the practical if not openly acknowledged racial inferiority of the Palestinian (read "Arab") people.
The right to resist derives from the values of justice, equality and freedom, but in the case of the Arab people it specifically gains the added value of being an existential struggle and a fight against the supremacist vision of the inferiority of the Arab people, and a refusal of the ideology of the oppressing power. Thus it is in no way merely a nationalistic, Arab or Islamic idea and its end goal can never be fighting the Jewish people or even uprooting Israel.
The clear goal of resistance should be defeating the Zionist ideology. This is an existential fight and one should never fear clearly stating a complete refusal of this ideology and its result (which in no way is an uncivil or a non-life-loving expression). Peace negotiations achieved nothing regarding this central dimension of the struggle, although removing Zionism as an ideology and practice is vital for peace in the Middle East.
The rocket and the gun -- as significant as their role may be -- cannot have the decisive word in the realm of the cultural, intellectual and humanistic battle. We need to understand the role of holistic resistance that the Arab people now more than ever have the ability and interest in deploying to place a siege around Zionism and racism. This resistance is very closely connected to values, culture and history.
In the age of globalization, the Internet and social media, the importance of centralized efforts is diminished as compared with decentralized, self-driven networks. More than ever, nonviolent resistance can harness the work of individuals contributing to a worldwide effort that has several aspects:
The knowledge dimension (cultural/educational/learning): This dimension is the most connected to the motives for resistance and is the logical input into the other dimensions. Understanding the motives and reasons behind the struggle and understanding the adversary and its methods, contributes to building the relationship between the values of justice and humanity on the one hand and the actions of resistance on the other. This dimension answers the "why" and increases the sense of moral and humane responsibility. Resistance must include learning curricula about the values being defended, and the educational and cultural work has to attack Zionism through arts and literature and the other cultural contributions. This is an important role of parents, researchers, writers and the elites in general.
Media and public relations: This dimension has internal and external aspects. The internal is directed to Arab audiences, educating them about the struggle, its goals, methods and cultural importance which it should be emphasized are humanistic and not nationalist or religious.
The external effort is directed to global public opinion which has a central role in the cultural struggle. Zionism realized this from the start and developed its strategy of hasbara (propaganda) and became a model to be studied in polishing the reputation of Israel and pressuring different groups and organizations. There are so many Israeli websites that aim to "educate" volunteers on how to refute accusations against Zionism, on creating pressure groups and organizing networks and public relations campaigns through tapping the huge potential of networks ready to provide support. We need to develop this dimension to empower the many people who believe in the cause but lack the means get the chance to express themselves.
The political-social dimensions: And here I don't mean politics in its direct relation with the military struggle, but rather as the translation of the wishes of the people. It should reflect the people's hopes of a dignified life and culture, and advancement towards good living that supports the belief in the values of justice. Civil society should, as a unit, communicate the values of resistance, justice and equality.
The economic and financial dimension: This is a very important weapon that we have until now failed to utilize. The least we can do is not buy the products of companies that are committed to the prosperity and development of the Israeli economy. I am not calling for a mass-scale boycott here, but rather surgical boycott of certain companies that really have a black history of unlimited and unjustified support to Israel, after communicating with them clearly about the reasons and the intent to boycott their products. There is already a global and growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that provides a framework to build on and support.
The judicial dimension: To try all Israeli and other individuals (and the state) for their responsibility for all the crimes (massacres, assassinations, displacement, theft, piracy, murders, rape, kidnapping and more) and flooding the international courts of law and civil rights groups with cases addressing Israeli crimes on all levels. There is a secondary role to this activity which is to direct the world's attention to the gravity of the various crimes. This should include all institutions that and individuals (even those deceased) who have actively contributed to supporting Zionism so they are recognized for what they are: criminals. There seems to be a need here for a central body that can coordinate the efforts of many research and legal groups.
All the above-mentioned aspects of nonviolent resistance are at the heart of a dignified, prosperous and humane life. The belief in and practice of these values can never be negative or destructive, but is a positive, value-affirming activity.
All efforts need to be directed to the origin of the problem in order to solve it, and the origin here is very clear: Zionism. As for occupation, that is just a symptom.
Are there certain values and absolute foundations that make resistance in general, and against Zionism specifically, a moral and humane necessity? What is the framework for nonviolent resistance, and how is it connected to these values? What is the ultimate end goal of the struggle? Is it returning the land and some rights to the indigenous Palestinian population, or can it lead to "solutions" that include acceptance of Zionism or even its right to exist?
Millions of persons hope for a chance to participate in this noble struggle, yet can't find the medium in which they can contribute. This is where there is an important role for a group of "movers" to create the vehicles for individual and collective contributions within the above framework and mobilizing the hitherto wasted support to achieve measurable results.
The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions defines Zionism as: "a global, political, ideological movement that aims to return the land of 'Israel' to the Jewish people," but this definition, besides its racist flavor (as it doesn't mention or consider an entire people who were inhabiting that land), doesn't tell the complete story. It might be important to mention that UN Resolution 3379 of 10 November 1975, after a prolonged discussion of the mechanisms of racist regimes, their alliances and human rights violations, decided that Zionism was equivalent to racism (the General Assembly revoked this decision by resolution 84/86 in 1991 after the advance of "peace negotiations").
To properly understand Zionism we cannot rely only on how it defines itself or how the dictionary defines it, as indicative as those might be. We must also look at the behaviors and practices that have characterized Zionism from the beginning of the movement and that were given intellectual and ideological rationales, fundamentally related to the materialization of Zionism through a state.
Zionism could not have effected its program without the ethnic cleansing of the people that inhabited what it called Greater Israel. Forced displacement, terrorism, murder and devaluation of the most basic human rights were justified because of the complete belief in the right of the Jewish "race" which consequently becomes racially "supreme" because Zionism claims that this "race" possesses an undeniable and superior "right" in this land.
The existence of Zionism, and its continuation as it is, constitutes a legitimization of all the previously mentioned crimes, co-existence with the logic of power, and the acceptance of the practical if not openly acknowledged racial inferiority of the Palestinian (read "Arab") people.
The right to resist derives from the values of justice, equality and freedom, but in the case of the Arab people it specifically gains the added value of being an existential struggle and a fight against the supremacist vision of the inferiority of the Arab people, and a refusal of the ideology of the oppressing power. Thus it is in no way merely a nationalistic, Arab or Islamic idea and its end goal can never be fighting the Jewish people or even uprooting Israel.
The clear goal of resistance should be defeating the Zionist ideology. This is an existential fight and one should never fear clearly stating a complete refusal of this ideology and its result (which in no way is an uncivil or a non-life-loving expression). Peace negotiations achieved nothing regarding this central dimension of the struggle, although removing Zionism as an ideology and practice is vital for peace in the Middle East.
The rocket and the gun -- as significant as their role may be -- cannot have the decisive word in the realm of the cultural, intellectual and humanistic battle. We need to understand the role of holistic resistance that the Arab people now more than ever have the ability and interest in deploying to place a siege around Zionism and racism. This resistance is very closely connected to values, culture and history.
In the age of globalization, the Internet and social media, the importance of centralized efforts is diminished as compared with decentralized, self-driven networks. More than ever, nonviolent resistance can harness the work of individuals contributing to a worldwide effort that has several aspects:
The knowledge dimension (cultural/educational/learning): This dimension is the most connected to the motives for resistance and is the logical input into the other dimensions. Understanding the motives and reasons behind the struggle and understanding the adversary and its methods, contributes to building the relationship between the values of justice and humanity on the one hand and the actions of resistance on the other. This dimension answers the "why" and increases the sense of moral and humane responsibility. Resistance must include learning curricula about the values being defended, and the educational and cultural work has to attack Zionism through arts and literature and the other cultural contributions. This is an important role of parents, researchers, writers and the elites in general.
Media and public relations: This dimension has internal and external aspects. The internal is directed to Arab audiences, educating them about the struggle, its goals, methods and cultural importance which it should be emphasized are humanistic and not nationalist or religious.
The external effort is directed to global public opinion which has a central role in the cultural struggle. Zionism realized this from the start and developed its strategy of hasbara (propaganda) and became a model to be studied in polishing the reputation of Israel and pressuring different groups and organizations. There are so many Israeli websites that aim to "educate" volunteers on how to refute accusations against Zionism, on creating pressure groups and organizing networks and public relations campaigns through tapping the huge potential of networks ready to provide support. We need to develop this dimension to empower the many people who believe in the cause but lack the means get the chance to express themselves.
The political-social dimensions: And here I don't mean politics in its direct relation with the military struggle, but rather as the translation of the wishes of the people. It should reflect the people's hopes of a dignified life and culture, and advancement towards good living that supports the belief in the values of justice. Civil society should, as a unit, communicate the values of resistance, justice and equality.
The economic and financial dimension: This is a very important weapon that we have until now failed to utilize. The least we can do is not buy the products of companies that are committed to the prosperity and development of the Israeli economy. I am not calling for a mass-scale boycott here, but rather surgical boycott of certain companies that really have a black history of unlimited and unjustified support to Israel, after communicating with them clearly about the reasons and the intent to boycott their products. There is already a global and growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that provides a framework to build on and support.
The judicial dimension: To try all Israeli and other individuals (and the state) for their responsibility for all the crimes (massacres, assassinations, displacement, theft, piracy, murders, rape, kidnapping and more) and flooding the international courts of law and civil rights groups with cases addressing Israeli crimes on all levels. There is a secondary role to this activity which is to direct the world's attention to the gravity of the various crimes. This should include all institutions that and individuals (even those deceased) who have actively contributed to supporting Zionism so they are recognized for what they are: criminals. There seems to be a need here for a central body that can coordinate the efforts of many research and legal groups.
All the above-mentioned aspects of nonviolent resistance are at the heart of a dignified, prosperous and humane life. The belief in and practice of these values can never be negative or destructive, but is a positive, value-affirming activity.
All efforts need to be directed to the origin of the problem in order to solve it, and the origin here is very clear: Zionism. As for occupation, that is just a symptom.
One can easily detect a generally superficial, and convenient, analysis of the outcomes of Israeli elections in western media outlets thus far. Indeed, the far right-wing of the Zionist continuum has strengthened its hold on the Israeli political system in the recent Israeli elections. Yet, it would be misleading to see these results as mainly the direct product of the onslaught on Gaza and the popular sentiment that followed, and to isolate them from processes that were underway years before the war. Indeed, the right-wing has been in a better position than the left within the Jewish vote since 1977, and its power has been steadily increasing since Ehud Barak destroyed the so-called Zionist left in Camp David 2000 and its aftermath.
Likewise, it would be mistaken to think of the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, as a major development or as the main source of concern for the Palestinians. Focusing on Lieberman (charitably called by the Guardian a "hardliner") distracts the discussion from the real issues to the person of one unpleasant politician who says ignominious things others are generally unwilling to say. This logic seems to suggest that the political disappearance of Lieberman will bring about a serendipitous resolution of major problems in the Middle East. Lieberman, however, only exacerbates an already existing problem, and he cannot be easily dismissed as a marginal case of excess or abnormality of the Israeli political system.
First, one needs to be reminded that among Yisrael Beiteinu's elected members of the Knesset are men who come from the establishment, for example, a former ambassador to the US and a former senior commander in the police force.
Second, in the negotiations that followed elections day there was a wide range of agreement not only between the Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu and Lieberman, but also the Kadima party of current Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Lieberman. Both sides were trying to convince him to join their own coalition. Needless to say, both Lieberman and Kadima emerged in the last decade as an offspring of the Likud.
Third, Ehud Barak of the Labor party rejected before the elections some of his senior party members' demand to promise not to join a coalition that would include Lieberman. Even worse, Barak claimed that Lieberman talks the talk but does not walk the walk as he never "shot anyone" thereby implying that he himself is the tough guy since he did actually kill Arabs in his past.
Fourth, Lieberman's central idea of land swap or population swap that would include Palestinian citizens of Israel and his view of this minority as a demographic and strategic threat to the self-proclaimed Jewish state are actually not controversial among the major parties and elites in Israel. The question of Palestinian citizenship in a Jewish state started long before Lieberman emerged on the scene and used incitement against the Palestinian citizens to gain more votes. Indeed, many prominent Israeli academics and politicians have expressed support of these ideas including Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Elie Yishai of the Shas party, Ephraim Sneh of Labor, journalist Dan Margalit and historian Benny Morris. To give one example, Ehud Barak said in his June 2002 interview with Benny Morris in The New York Review of Books that the Arab citizens will serve as the "spear point" of the Palestinian struggle, and that this would require changes in the rules of the "democratic game" to guarantee the "Jewishness" of the state. He also expressed support for a land swap that would include large Arab concentrations inside Israel because it makes "demographic sense."
To give another example, on 23 January 2002 Livni urged members of the Knesset to reject an "equal protection clause" according to which equality is the right of every citizen in the state regardless of his or her nationality or religion or views. Indeed, the proposed bill was rejected and formal equality remains outside the Israeli book of laws. She also supported "settlement and allocation of land for Jews only" bills in the Knesset. Finally, she repeatedly argued that Israel will never be the national home for its Palestinian citizens, and if they have a collective aspiration they should look for it somewhere else.
Fifth, this is not the first time that Lieberman has become a cabinet minister in Israel. In fact he served as the minister of national infrastructure (2001-02), minister of transportation (2003-04), and then more recently as the minister for strategic affairs (2006-08).
Sixth, Lieberman is not the first or only outspoken proponent of expulsion of the Palestinians to serve in the government. In fact, Rehavam Ze'evi of the racist Moledet party was a minister without portfolio (1991-92), and then again as a minister of tourism (2001) in the Sharon government until he was assassinated by Palestinians, only to be replaced by Benjamin Elon of the same party and with the same views. Ze'evi was more principled in this issue than Lieberman. Notable in this context is that the Israeli legislator enacted a law to commemorate Ze'evi's "legacy" after his assassination.
Other fascist politicians have also served in the Israeli government in recent years. Effie Eitam of the National Religious Party (HaMafdal), for instance, is another proponent of expulsion who famously called the Palestinian citizens of Israel a "ticking bomb" and a "cancer." That did not prevent the former general from being appointed as a minister of housing (2003-04) and minister of national infrastructure (2002).
In Theodor Herzl's novel Altneuland, published in 1902, Rabbi Dr. Geyer ran in the elections on the platform of disenfranchising the Arab citizens. The mainstream Zionists, on the one hand, and the good Arab who welcomed the Zionists, on the other hand, rejected Geyer as a troublemaker and Geyer was defeated in the elections in the novel. Lieberman currently plays the role of Rabbi Geyer with the difference that he actually won in the elections and he is a kingmaker. This state of affairs seems to have misled many of the commentators who are focused on the danger that the emergence of Lieberman poses. That would be tantamount to focusing on Rabbi Geyer and forgetting Herzl and the Zionist project itself which entailed not only the displacement of the Palestinian people but also the unequal status for those who remained as citizens inside Israel.
The movement to the right wing within Zionism cannot be reduced to Lieberman, and what is troubling about Zionism cannot be reduced to its right-wing side only.
Nimer Sultany is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. He has worked as a human rights lawyer in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as the head of the political monitoring project at Mada al-Carmel (the Arab center for applied social research).
Likewise, it would be mistaken to think of the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, as a major development or as the main source of concern for the Palestinians. Focusing on Lieberman (charitably called by the Guardian a "hardliner") distracts the discussion from the real issues to the person of one unpleasant politician who says ignominious things others are generally unwilling to say. This logic seems to suggest that the political disappearance of Lieberman will bring about a serendipitous resolution of major problems in the Middle East. Lieberman, however, only exacerbates an already existing problem, and he cannot be easily dismissed as a marginal case of excess or abnormality of the Israeli political system.
First, one needs to be reminded that among Yisrael Beiteinu's elected members of the Knesset are men who come from the establishment, for example, a former ambassador to the US and a former senior commander in the police force.
Second, in the negotiations that followed elections day there was a wide range of agreement not only between the Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu and Lieberman, but also the Kadima party of current Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Lieberman. Both sides were trying to convince him to join their own coalition. Needless to say, both Lieberman and Kadima emerged in the last decade as an offspring of the Likud.
Third, Ehud Barak of the Labor party rejected before the elections some of his senior party members' demand to promise not to join a coalition that would include Lieberman. Even worse, Barak claimed that Lieberman talks the talk but does not walk the walk as he never "shot anyone" thereby implying that he himself is the tough guy since he did actually kill Arabs in his past.
Fourth, Lieberman's central idea of land swap or population swap that would include Palestinian citizens of Israel and his view of this minority as a demographic and strategic threat to the self-proclaimed Jewish state are actually not controversial among the major parties and elites in Israel. The question of Palestinian citizenship in a Jewish state started long before Lieberman emerged on the scene and used incitement against the Palestinian citizens to gain more votes. Indeed, many prominent Israeli academics and politicians have expressed support of these ideas including Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Elie Yishai of the Shas party, Ephraim Sneh of Labor, journalist Dan Margalit and historian Benny Morris. To give one example, Ehud Barak said in his June 2002 interview with Benny Morris in The New York Review of Books that the Arab citizens will serve as the "spear point" of the Palestinian struggle, and that this would require changes in the rules of the "democratic game" to guarantee the "Jewishness" of the state. He also expressed support for a land swap that would include large Arab concentrations inside Israel because it makes "demographic sense."
To give another example, on 23 January 2002 Livni urged members of the Knesset to reject an "equal protection clause" according to which equality is the right of every citizen in the state regardless of his or her nationality or religion or views. Indeed, the proposed bill was rejected and formal equality remains outside the Israeli book of laws. She also supported "settlement and allocation of land for Jews only" bills in the Knesset. Finally, she repeatedly argued that Israel will never be the national home for its Palestinian citizens, and if they have a collective aspiration they should look for it somewhere else.
Fifth, this is not the first time that Lieberman has become a cabinet minister in Israel. In fact he served as the minister of national infrastructure (2001-02), minister of transportation (2003-04), and then more recently as the minister for strategic affairs (2006-08).
Sixth, Lieberman is not the first or only outspoken proponent of expulsion of the Palestinians to serve in the government. In fact, Rehavam Ze'evi of the racist Moledet party was a minister without portfolio (1991-92), and then again as a minister of tourism (2001) in the Sharon government until he was assassinated by Palestinians, only to be replaced by Benjamin Elon of the same party and with the same views. Ze'evi was more principled in this issue than Lieberman. Notable in this context is that the Israeli legislator enacted a law to commemorate Ze'evi's "legacy" after his assassination.
Other fascist politicians have also served in the Israeli government in recent years. Effie Eitam of the National Religious Party (HaMafdal), for instance, is another proponent of expulsion who famously called the Palestinian citizens of Israel a "ticking bomb" and a "cancer." That did not prevent the former general from being appointed as a minister of housing (2003-04) and minister of national infrastructure (2002).
In Theodor Herzl's novel Altneuland, published in 1902, Rabbi Dr. Geyer ran in the elections on the platform of disenfranchising the Arab citizens. The mainstream Zionists, on the one hand, and the good Arab who welcomed the Zionists, on the other hand, rejected Geyer as a troublemaker and Geyer was defeated in the elections in the novel. Lieberman currently plays the role of Rabbi Geyer with the difference that he actually won in the elections and he is a kingmaker. This state of affairs seems to have misled many of the commentators who are focused on the danger that the emergence of Lieberman poses. That would be tantamount to focusing on Rabbi Geyer and forgetting Herzl and the Zionist project itself which entailed not only the displacement of the Palestinian people but also the unequal status for those who remained as citizens inside Israel.
The movement to the right wing within Zionism cannot be reduced to Lieberman, and what is troubling about Zionism cannot be reduced to its right-wing side only.
Nimer Sultany is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. He has worked as a human rights lawyer in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as the head of the political monitoring project at Mada al-Carmel (the Arab center for applied social research).
Encountering Peace: Far-fetched - but not beyond imagination
Mar. 30, 2009
Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu. Your recent statements indicating your intention to be a true partner to the Palestinians in advancing peace through negotiations is what the international community wants to hear. But more than wanting to hear positive statements on your intentions to make peace, the international community want to see progress on the ground.
The international community is quite united on this issue, more than you remember from the last time you sat in the PM's chair, and it's not only those anti-Israeli Europeans. US President Barack Obama also wants to see your commitment to making peace with the Palestinians and beware, Obama is truly interested in a multilateral foreign policy. The Quartet - the invention of the Bush administration to provide the US with a veto vis-à-vis Israel, will now act in a very different way. The US is determined to work in full cooperation with the other Quartet members - the EU, the UN and Russia. The US will even encourage the other partners to take initiatives - in coordination with each other, so that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process can be resumed, and this time, completed.
The international community is not interested in another long, drawn out Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israel might be in love with peace processes and negotiations, but this time the world wants to see results, not more negotiations. After 18 years of peace processes since the Madrid Conference, there are some issues which, in the eyes of the international community, are no longer under negotiation - they are clear and must be expressed already in peace agreements.
In the eyes of almost every nation, the question of Palestinian statehood, sovereignty and independence is no longer a negotiating issue. Likewise, in the opinion of almost all of the nations of the world, Jerusalem should be the capital of both states - the exact formula of how to do this must be worked out. In Israel's favor, most nations do not expect it to accept and absorb any significant number of Palestinian refugees.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY has lost its patience with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. There will be less tolerance than ever before for Israeli policies that counter the prospects for peace. Continued settlement building and expansion will expose this country, for the first time, to the real possibility of sanctions.
The international community, particularly the friends of Israel, have a large number of "tools" in their diplomatic toolbox which could be used to persuade the new government to make progress toward peace. Not all of those tools come down to the huge amount of financial aid that the country gets from the US. That aid is pretty much protected by Congress, but there are other actions that the international community, including the US could take to pressure Israel.
One small example - imagine if the US and Europe did not threaten to boycott the Durban II summit against racism being held in Geneva at the end of April. The initial draft resolutions branded Israel as an occupying state that carries out racist policies. Following the boycott threat, the document contains no reference to Israel, the Middle East or defamation of religion.
Israel enjoys the protection of an international umbrella in many international forums, not only provided by the US. Israel also enjoys access to many international funds, such as the EU Seventh Framework Program which enables it to compete on grants and contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros.
It also has benefited from the US veto in the Security Council, which has been used 11 times to prevent anti-Israeli resolutions from being passed. If a direct confrontation develops between the Netanyahu government and the international community, we should not be surprised if a new Security Council resolution appears looking something like the following:
Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East, emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security, emphasizing further that all member states in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the charter, the Security Council affirms that the fulfillment of charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in June 1967; the establishment of the State of Palestine on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders, in the areas of the West Bank and Gaza including east Jerusalem; termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force; the governments of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine will enter into immediate negotiations between them on the exact borders between them. The guiding principle in the determination of the borders is that the State of Palestine will be composed of 22 percent of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and the remaining 78% of the territory will be the State of Israel.
This settlement will establish Palestine as the Palestinian homeland, just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people. Israel must immediately demonstrate support for the creation of a prosperous and successful Palestinian state by removing unauthorized outposts and ending settlement expansion. The government of Palestine must demonstrate that its state will create opportunity for all its citizens and govern justly and dismantle the infrastructure of terror. It must show that a Palestinian state will accept its responsibility and have the capability to be a source of stability and peace for its own citizens, for the people of Israel and for the whole region.
The Security Council recognizes the city of Jerusalem as the capitals of both states and calls on the governments of the two states to negotiate the modalities for application of such in the city.
The Security Council recognizes the importance of the holy sites in Jerusalem to all three religions and proposes that they be placed under an international guardianship guaranteeing free and open access to all people who respect the sanctity of the sites.
The Security Council empowers the Quartet to work with the governments of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine to conclude negotiations on the permanent borders of the two states within one year, including the modalities for the city of Jerusalem. The Quartet will report back to the Security Council on progress of those negotiations on a quarterly basis.
In accordance with Chapter VI and Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council announces its readiness to deploy peacekeeping troops to the State of Palestine to assist and to facilitate the withdrawal of Israeli security forces from the territories of the State of Palestine.
The Security Council calls on the General Assembly to act in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure, to: 1. Decide that the State of Palestine is a peace-loving state which accepts the obligations contained in the charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations; 2. Decide to admit the State of Palestine to membership in the United Nations.
Maybe far-fetched, but not beyond imagination.
The writer is the co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.
Mar. 30, 2009
Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu. Your recent statements indicating your intention to be a true partner to the Palestinians in advancing peace through negotiations is what the international community wants to hear. But more than wanting to hear positive statements on your intentions to make peace, the international community want to see progress on the ground.
The international community is quite united on this issue, more than you remember from the last time you sat in the PM's chair, and it's not only those anti-Israeli Europeans. US President Barack Obama also wants to see your commitment to making peace with the Palestinians and beware, Obama is truly interested in a multilateral foreign policy. The Quartet - the invention of the Bush administration to provide the US with a veto vis-à-vis Israel, will now act in a very different way. The US is determined to work in full cooperation with the other Quartet members - the EU, the UN and Russia. The US will even encourage the other partners to take initiatives - in coordination with each other, so that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process can be resumed, and this time, completed.
The international community is not interested in another long, drawn out Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israel might be in love with peace processes and negotiations, but this time the world wants to see results, not more negotiations. After 18 years of peace processes since the Madrid Conference, there are some issues which, in the eyes of the international community, are no longer under negotiation - they are clear and must be expressed already in peace agreements.
In the eyes of almost every nation, the question of Palestinian statehood, sovereignty and independence is no longer a negotiating issue. Likewise, in the opinion of almost all of the nations of the world, Jerusalem should be the capital of both states - the exact formula of how to do this must be worked out. In Israel's favor, most nations do not expect it to accept and absorb any significant number of Palestinian refugees.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY has lost its patience with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. There will be less tolerance than ever before for Israeli policies that counter the prospects for peace. Continued settlement building and expansion will expose this country, for the first time, to the real possibility of sanctions.
The international community, particularly the friends of Israel, have a large number of "tools" in their diplomatic toolbox which could be used to persuade the new government to make progress toward peace. Not all of those tools come down to the huge amount of financial aid that the country gets from the US. That aid is pretty much protected by Congress, but there are other actions that the international community, including the US could take to pressure Israel.
One small example - imagine if the US and Europe did not threaten to boycott the Durban II summit against racism being held in Geneva at the end of April. The initial draft resolutions branded Israel as an occupying state that carries out racist policies. Following the boycott threat, the document contains no reference to Israel, the Middle East or defamation of religion.
Israel enjoys the protection of an international umbrella in many international forums, not only provided by the US. Israel also enjoys access to many international funds, such as the EU Seventh Framework Program which enables it to compete on grants and contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros.
It also has benefited from the US veto in the Security Council, which has been used 11 times to prevent anti-Israeli resolutions from being passed. If a direct confrontation develops between the Netanyahu government and the international community, we should not be surprised if a new Security Council resolution appears looking something like the following:
Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East, emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security, emphasizing further that all member states in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the charter, the Security Council affirms that the fulfillment of charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in June 1967; the establishment of the State of Palestine on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders, in the areas of the West Bank and Gaza including east Jerusalem; termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force; the governments of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine will enter into immediate negotiations between them on the exact borders between them. The guiding principle in the determination of the borders is that the State of Palestine will be composed of 22 percent of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and the remaining 78% of the territory will be the State of Israel.
This settlement will establish Palestine as the Palestinian homeland, just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people. Israel must immediately demonstrate support for the creation of a prosperous and successful Palestinian state by removing unauthorized outposts and ending settlement expansion. The government of Palestine must demonstrate that its state will create opportunity for all its citizens and govern justly and dismantle the infrastructure of terror. It must show that a Palestinian state will accept its responsibility and have the capability to be a source of stability and peace for its own citizens, for the people of Israel and for the whole region.
The Security Council recognizes the city of Jerusalem as the capitals of both states and calls on the governments of the two states to negotiate the modalities for application of such in the city.
The Security Council recognizes the importance of the holy sites in Jerusalem to all three religions and proposes that they be placed under an international guardianship guaranteeing free and open access to all people who respect the sanctity of the sites.
The Security Council empowers the Quartet to work with the governments of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine to conclude negotiations on the permanent borders of the two states within one year, including the modalities for the city of Jerusalem. The Quartet will report back to the Security Council on progress of those negotiations on a quarterly basis.
In accordance with Chapter VI and Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council announces its readiness to deploy peacekeeping troops to the State of Palestine to assist and to facilitate the withdrawal of Israeli security forces from the territories of the State of Palestine.
The Security Council calls on the General Assembly to act in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure, to: 1. Decide that the State of Palestine is a peace-loving state which accepts the obligations contained in the charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations; 2. Decide to admit the State of Palestine to membership in the United Nations.
Maybe far-fetched, but not beyond imagination.
The writer is the co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
“Ze’ev Herzog, a professor of archeology at Tel Aviv University, caused a storm in 1999 when he admitted that archeology had failed to find evidence that an ancient Jewish nation ever existed:
‘This is what archeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom.’
In fact, Herzog’s research, and that of other archeologists suggest that when a historical entity called Israel briefly did emerge, it was pagan and Jerusalem was not its spiritual center.”
“Another controversy flared in early 2008 when Shlomo Sand, a history professor at Tel Aviv University, published a book in Hebrew called When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? According to a sympathetic review by the Israeli journalist Tom Segev, Sand debunks Israel’s official history that today’s Jews are descendants of the Jewish community in Palestine 2,000 years ago, a community that was supposedly exiled by the Romans in 70 AD. He argues instead that most of the Jews and Christians in the region converted to Islam several hundred years later, when the Arabs conquered Palestine. Interestingly, this view was shared by at least two of Israel’s founding fathers, Yitzhak Ben Tzvi and David Ben-Gurion. They believed that many modern Palestinians were descended from the regions Jews. In the 1920’s the pair even dabbled with a plan to convert the native Palestinians back to Judaism….”
“How, then does Sand explain today’s widely dispersed Jewish Diaspora if there was no exile? These Jews, he argues, are in fact the descendants of non-Jews who converted to Judaism, thereby explaining the great ethnic diversity to be found among the modern Jewish population. In Sand’s view, Judaism was a proselytizing religion that competed for converts with the new upstart faiths of Christianity and Islam. It had most success among pagan populations*, particularly the Berber tribes located in north Africa, the Arabs of southern Arabia and Turks of South Russia, who converted from the fourth century AD onward. [my emphasis: I was first confronted with this “fact” in the research of Merlin Stone, presented in her book When God Was A Woman, back in the 1970’s.]
The people did not spread, but the Jewish religion spread”, Sand observed in an interview.”
“Most damagingly to the Zionist idea of a Jewish ‘return’, Sand argues that Askenazi Jews, the first immigrants to Palestine following the pogroms in eastern Europe and today’s ruling class in Israel have no historic connection to Palestine. Sand and other scholars believe they were originally Khazars, a Turkic people who created a kingdom 1,000 year ago in what is now southern Russia. The Khazar king, says Sand, converted himself and his subject to Judaism. In partial support of this theory, Paul Wexler of Tel Aviv University argues that Yiddish—generally assumed to be a Germanic tongue—is, in fact, a Slavic language.”
Below are the articles from the BBC on-line and Israel Newspaper Ha’aretz from which Cook quotes:
Israel digs into the past
Israel: The promised land?( BBC on-line, Dec 23, 1999)
By Paul Adams in Jerusalem
Picture one of the Bible's great scenes: Moses, aged 120, looks out over the Promised Land.
For 40 years, he has led his people, the Israelites, on an extraordinary journey from slavery in Egypt across the desert wastes of the Sinai.
All these events are contradicted by archaeology
Professor Ze'ev Herzog, Archaeologist
With a glimpse of the ancient city of Jericho, the old man dies. His chosen successor, Joshua, goes on to capture the city and conquer Palestine.
What if this never happened?
Jericho - the first walled city on earth - still stands. Archaeologists have poured over its dusty ruins since the 19th century, unearthing evidence of at least 23 levels of occupation.
The ruins have revealed a history of prosperity, decline and conquest.
No proof
Despite all of the digging, they have never found any proof that Jericho's fabled walls "came tumbling down" as described by Joshua himself.
Not only that, there is nothing to support the great, miraculous story that precedes the fall of Jericho.
Moses glimpsed the ancient city of Jericho - or did he?
There is no sign of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the slavery in Egypt, or anyone wandering in the desert.
Professor Ze'ev Herzog is an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University who has participated in excavations up and down the country.
"All these events are practically contradicted by archaeology," says Professor Herzog.
"Basically, these events did not happen on a national level. Some of these events could have been the local experience of a few families that were later nationalised into one coherent description."
For decades, Israeli archaeologists have attempted to prove that the Bible justified the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland.
Digging for evidence was a national obsession and part of the state-building process.
Time to reassess
There is ample proof that the Jewish people occupied the land almost 3000 years ago.
However, their arrival was probably a migration, rather than a conquest. Professor Herzog says it is time to stop looking for what is not there.
"After so many years of development of Israeli culture, we are now mature enough to look at the evidence in a more critical way, and not accept the legendary parts of the Bible as historical ones", he says.
Controversy
It is hardly surprising that Professor Herzog's conclusions - which coincide with efforts to re-evaluate Israel's modern history - should spark controversy.
Rabbi Spiro is concerned that the history of the Bible is being "undermined"
Rabbi Ken Spiro, who brings Jewish students from around the world to Jericho, acknowledges that the archaeological evidence is slight, to say the least.
He argues,"lack of evidence does not mean evidence of lack."
He also believes that what Professor Herzog and others are doing is dangerous.
"When you undermine the historicity of the Bible and the veracity of the claim that the Bible is essentially accurate, you are basically saying that it is fiction and that we have no more right to be here than anyone else."
For Jewish settlers, who base their right to occupy Palestinian land on the Bible and evidence of an early Jewish presence, Professor Herzog's findings are particularly problematic.
A large audience assembl
ed recently at the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut to debate the evidence.
The Tel Aviv professor received a polite welcome, but this was the lion's den.
Symbols of the Old Testament are everywhere in Israel
Noam Arnon represents the small, militant Jewish community living in the heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.
He says that the Jewish patriarch Abraham will be remembered long after Professor Herzog is forgotten.
'This country is the land of Israel'
"To doubt, or debate some minor facts in the Bible will not change the minds of the people here that this country is the land of Israel and their mission today is to fertilise it and to settle it," says Mr Arnon.
"... an attempt to prove that Zionism is wrong and Israel is wrong."
Tommy Lapid, Israeli member of parliament
Some critics go further and smell a political conspiracy to discredit Israel.
The outspoken member of parliament, Tommy Lapid, dismisses Professor Herzog's theories as Jewish self-hatred. He says,
"There is an underlying political motive of very left-wing attitudes towards Zionism."
"The attempt to prove that the Bible is wrong is really an attempt to prove that Zionism is wrong and Israel is wrong."
The debate over what is Jewish historical fact and what is legend is sure to continue.
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
By Tom Segev ( Ha’aretz feb 29, 2008)
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
‘This is what archeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom.’
In fact, Herzog’s research, and that of other archeologists suggest that when a historical entity called Israel briefly did emerge, it was pagan and Jerusalem was not its spiritual center.”
“Another controversy flared in early 2008 when Shlomo Sand, a history professor at Tel Aviv University, published a book in Hebrew called When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? According to a sympathetic review by the Israeli journalist Tom Segev, Sand debunks Israel’s official history that today’s Jews are descendants of the Jewish community in Palestine 2,000 years ago, a community that was supposedly exiled by the Romans in 70 AD. He argues instead that most of the Jews and Christians in the region converted to Islam several hundred years later, when the Arabs conquered Palestine. Interestingly, this view was shared by at least two of Israel’s founding fathers, Yitzhak Ben Tzvi and David Ben-Gurion. They believed that many modern Palestinians were descended from the regions Jews. In the 1920’s the pair even dabbled with a plan to convert the native Palestinians back to Judaism….”
“How, then does Sand explain today’s widely dispersed Jewish Diaspora if there was no exile? These Jews, he argues, are in fact the descendants of non-Jews who converted to Judaism, thereby explaining the great ethnic diversity to be found among the modern Jewish population. In Sand’s view, Judaism was a proselytizing religion that competed for converts with the new upstart faiths of Christianity and Islam. It had most success among pagan populations*, particularly the Berber tribes located in north Africa, the Arabs of southern Arabia and Turks of South Russia, who converted from the fourth century AD onward. [my emphasis: I was first confronted with this “fact” in the research of Merlin Stone, presented in her book When God Was A Woman, back in the 1970’s.]
The people did not spread, but the Jewish religion spread”, Sand observed in an interview.”
“Most damagingly to the Zionist idea of a Jewish ‘return’, Sand argues that Askenazi Jews, the first immigrants to Palestine following the pogroms in eastern Europe and today’s ruling class in Israel have no historic connection to Palestine. Sand and other scholars believe they were originally Khazars, a Turkic people who created a kingdom 1,000 year ago in what is now southern Russia. The Khazar king, says Sand, converted himself and his subject to Judaism. In partial support of this theory, Paul Wexler of Tel Aviv University argues that Yiddish—generally assumed to be a Germanic tongue—is, in fact, a Slavic language.”
Below are the articles from the BBC on-line and Israel Newspaper Ha’aretz from which Cook quotes:
Israel digs into the past
Israel: The promised land?( BBC on-line, Dec 23, 1999)
By Paul Adams in Jerusalem
Picture one of the Bible's great scenes: Moses, aged 120, looks out over the Promised Land.
For 40 years, he has led his people, the Israelites, on an extraordinary journey from slavery in Egypt across the desert wastes of the Sinai.
All these events are contradicted by archaeology
Professor Ze'ev Herzog, Archaeologist
With a glimpse of the ancient city of Jericho, the old man dies. His chosen successor, Joshua, goes on to capture the city and conquer Palestine.
What if this never happened?
Jericho - the first walled city on earth - still stands. Archaeologists have poured over its dusty ruins since the 19th century, unearthing evidence of at least 23 levels of occupation.
The ruins have revealed a history of prosperity, decline and conquest.
No proof
Despite all of the digging, they have never found any proof that Jericho's fabled walls "came tumbling down" as described by Joshua himself.
Not only that, there is nothing to support the great, miraculous story that precedes the fall of Jericho.
Moses glimpsed the ancient city of Jericho - or did he?
There is no sign of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the slavery in Egypt, or anyone wandering in the desert.
Professor Ze'ev Herzog is an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University who has participated in excavations up and down the country.
"All these events are practically contradicted by archaeology," says Professor Herzog.
"Basically, these events did not happen on a national level. Some of these events could have been the local experience of a few families that were later nationalised into one coherent description."
For decades, Israeli archaeologists have attempted to prove that the Bible justified the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland.
Digging for evidence was a national obsession and part of the state-building process.
Time to reassess
There is ample proof that the Jewish people occupied the land almost 3000 years ago.
However, their arrival was probably a migration, rather than a conquest. Professor Herzog says it is time to stop looking for what is not there.
"After so many years of development of Israeli culture, we are now mature enough to look at the evidence in a more critical way, and not accept the legendary parts of the Bible as historical ones", he says.
Controversy
It is hardly surprising that Professor Herzog's conclusions - which coincide with efforts to re-evaluate Israel's modern history - should spark controversy.
Rabbi Spiro is concerned that the history of the Bible is being "undermined"
Rabbi Ken Spiro, who brings Jewish students from around the world to Jericho, acknowledges that the archaeological evidence is slight, to say the least.
He argues,"lack of evidence does not mean evidence of lack."
He also believes that what Professor Herzog and others are doing is dangerous.
"When you undermine the historicity of the Bible and the veracity of the claim that the Bible is essentially accurate, you are basically saying that it is fiction and that we have no more right to be here than anyone else."
For Jewish settlers, who base their right to occupy Palestinian land on the Bible and evidence of an early Jewish presence, Professor Herzog's findings are particularly problematic.
A large audience assembl
ed recently at the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut to debate the evidence.
The Tel Aviv professor received a polite welcome, but this was the lion's den.
Symbols of the Old Testament are everywhere in Israel
Noam Arnon represents the small, militant Jewish community living in the heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron.
He says that the Jewish patriarch Abraham will be remembered long after Professor Herzog is forgotten.
'This country is the land of Israel'
"To doubt, or debate some minor facts in the Bible will not change the minds of the people here that this country is the land of Israel and their mission today is to fertilise it and to settle it," says Mr Arnon.
"... an attempt to prove that Zionism is wrong and Israel is wrong."
Tommy Lapid, Israeli member of parliament
Some critics go further and smell a political conspiracy to discredit Israel.
The outspoken member of parliament, Tommy Lapid, dismisses Professor Herzog's theories as Jewish self-hatred. He says,
"There is an underlying political motive of very left-wing attitudes towards Zionism."
"The attempt to prove that the Bible is wrong is really an attempt to prove that Zionism is wrong and Israel is wrong."
The debate over what is Jewish historical fact and what is legend is sure to continue.
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
By Tom Segev ( Ha’aretz feb 29, 2008)
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
March 17, 2009 | Trying to figure out what Barack Obama intends to do in the Middle East is like trying to read the leaves in a cup of tea stirred by Jackson Pollock. For every signal Obama has given that he intends to break decisively with Bush's failed approach to the Middle East, he has given another that indicates he plans to simply give the same policies a fresh coat of paint.
Obama took what many regarded as a backwards step even before assuming office by appointing Hillary Clinton, who supported the Iraq war and as senator toed the establishment line on Israel, as secretary of state. But then he gave his first presidential interview to the Arabic-language station al-Arabiya and announced that his administration would approach the Arab-Muslim world with a spirit of respect and willingness to listen. He said, "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." But then he named as his Iran advisor the right-leaning Dennis Ross, who signed a threatening Iran paper drafted by two hard-line neoconservatives, claimed, in a statement to Congress accompanying his renewal of sanctions against Iran, that the country posed "an extraordinary threat" to the U.S. and gave every indication that he would continue Bush's failed carrots-and-sticks approach. Obama has ordered a top-to-bottom strategic review of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, but sent 17,000 more troops there and has continued to assassinate militants in Pakistan with missiles fired from Predator drones. He announced that he was winding down the Iraq war, but is doing so at a hyper-cautious pace.
Not surprisingly, Obama's most contradictory messages concern the most important, and politically radioactive, issue of all: the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. His appointment of the respected negotiator George Mitchell as special envoy for the Middle East was taken as strong evidence that he was prepared to challenge Washington's blank-check support for Israel. In a major break with the Bush administration's refusal to deal with Hamas, Mitchell told Jewish leaders that a Palestinian unity government made up of the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority and Hamas would be "a step forward" for peace. Similarly, after Britain announced that it would break with U.S. and European policy by beginning low-level contacts with Hezbollah, an anonymous State Department official told reporters that the U.S. might enjoy some benefits from the diplomatic rapprochement. "We are looking for a comprehensive approach" in the Middle East, the official said. For her part, Secretary of State Clinton, on her first trip to the Middle East, criticized Israeli house demolitions in East Jerusalem, albeit in feeble, Condoleezza Rice-like terms as "unhelpful," and hinted that the Obama administration was prepared to challenge the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. She also pledged $900 million in U.S. aid to rebuild Gaza after Israel's devastating 22-day onslaught earlier this year.
All of these developments represent a significant change from Bush administration policies on Israel-Palestine. But the Obama administration's right hand proceeded to undo what its left one had done.
Having sent signals that it might be prepared to break with Bush's policy of excluding Hamas and Hezbollah, the Obama administration proceeded to exclude them. Secretary of State Clinton has continued the Bush administration policy of dealing only with Fatah, the dominant faction in the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud Abbas. She ordered that U.S. funds for Gaza go only to the PA, not Hamas. And in direct contradiction of the cautious support for a British-Hezbollah thaw expressed by an anonymous Obama official, another anonymous official sharply criticized it.
The most glaring sign that Obama might continue the status quo on Israel was his failure to defend Charles Freeman. Obama's director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, had asked Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, but the highly respected diplomat withdrew after he was heavily attacked by supporters of Israel, including neoconservative ideologues and politicians from both sides of the aisle, such as the Democratic New York senator Charles Schumer. "His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration," Schumer said. Obama's refusal to stand up for Freeman indicates that he is unwilling to challenge Washington's quasi-official, bipartisan policy of unswerving support for Israel, and raises serious questions about whether he will be prepared to confront the incoming right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. But if he fails to do so, all his diplomatic overtures in the region will only be so much hot air.
Obama has broken with Bush's Middle East policy in one key area: He is talking to more players in the region. The most notable difference concerns Syria. Bush demonized Syria as a junior-varsity member of the Axis of Evil and refused to deal with it, but Obama is talking to Damascus and encouraging it to resume peace negotiations with Israel. His strategic purpose is to drive a wedge between it and its fellow hardline state Iran, thus weakening the militant rejectionist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and strengthening Fatah. This is a good idea as far as it goes, and it represents a qualified change from the Bush strategy of trying to line up the "moderate" states of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan against the "extremist" ones, Iran and Syria and their militant clients.
The problem, however, is that it is only a qualified change, because Obama is still refusing to deal with Iran and the militant groups, hoping they can be marginalized. But they cannot be marginalized unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Obama can fiddle around the edges all he wants, make all the right noises, but unless he is willing to deal with the real problem, his Middle East policy will go nowhere.
His cautious and contradictory moves so far give the impression that Obama hopes that more diplomacy will somehow cause the chess pieces on the Middle East board to move in such a way that he will be able to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace without going head-to-head with Israel. But that hope is unrealistic.
Capitalizing on their fear of Iran, which his Iraq war greatly strengthened, Bush prodded the "moderate" Arab states to close ranks against the "extremists." So far, Obama is following a similar path -- with the only difference being that he has opened communication with Syria. But the "moderates," their legitimacy badly damaged by Israel's Gaza onslaught, never fully embraced that strategy, and they have now rejected it. They still distrust Iran, but they have come to realize that the only way to weaken it and its militant proxies is by addressing the root cause of extremism: the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. That's why the Arab states have been engaged in furious diplomacy in the run-up to the upcoming Arab League summit in Qatar -- including reaching out to Syria. The recent four-way meeting in Riyadh between King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Syrian president Bashir Assad, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah ended with a pledge to speak with one voice on Israel-Palestine.
The fact that all the Arab states have adopted a uniform position on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, demanding that it be resolved along the lines of the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, spells a death knell for Bush's attempt to use the "moderate" regimes' fear of their own Islamist radicals to sideline them on Israel-Palestine. And it puts the onus squarely on the U.S., and its client Israel, to take immediate and concrete steps towards a two-state solution.
Seen in this light, Israel's Gaza war was a major strategic blunder. Not only did it achieve nothing militarily -- the crude rockets it was ostensibly intended to stop continue to rain down, Hamas is more popular than ever, and Abbas is weaker -- but it united the Arab states against it. The Saudis and Egyptians fear Iran and were enraged after Syria's Assad derided them as "half-men" for failing to oppose Israel, but after Gaza they had no choice but to present a united front on Israel-Palestine. As Agence France-Presse reported on the recent Riyadh meeting, "[T]he Saudis see themselves as 'delivering' the Arabs to comprehensive peace talks, hoping to provoke the Obama administration to 'deliver Israel' -- regardless of who is leading Israel's government. Riyadh wants to maneuver Israel into 'a put up or shut up' situation, said one foreign analyst."
U.S. hopes that Syria can somehow be persuaded to break with Iran are misguided. As Syrian analyst Marwan Kabalan told the National, "Syria believes it can have good ties with Iran and America, that it does not have to choose between one or the other." The only way for America to undercut Iran, Kabalan said, was to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace. "The answer is the peace process, and not just a deal between Syria and Israel over the Golan," he said. "If you want to undercut Iran, you don't need to ask Syria to move away from Iran, you just need a fair peace. Peace will automatically mean that Hamas and Hizbollah are playing a more political role."
As Kabalan's comments suggest, neither Syria nor Iran is going to drop its support for the militant groups until there is a viable Palestinian state. Nor are Hamas and Hezbollah going to give up armed resistance until the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land ends. This leaves Obama no choice: If he wants to stabilize the Middle East, prop up the "moderate" regimes and disarm the militants, he has to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution. America's present policy, demanding that the rejectionist and radical Arab factions agree in advance to renounce violence and recognize Israel while not simultaneously demanding that Israel end the occupation and return to its 1967 borders, has not worked, will not work and is simply a recipe for a continued conflict. And time is not on Israel's side.
But demanding that Israel take the steps necessary to make peace means a harsh face-off with the Netanyahu government. If the Gaza war moved the Arab states to the left, it moved Israel to the right. On Monday, it was announced that Avigdor Lieberman, a bigoted ultra-nationalist who ran an explicitly anti-Arab campaign, would be Netanyahu's Foreign Minister -- the equivalent of Obama naming George Lincoln Rockwell or David Duke to be his secretary of state. The stage is set for a major collision.
Obama's cautious moves so far, and the lengths he went to before the election to assure right-wing American Jewish groups like AIPAC that he was staunchly pro-Israel, suggest that he wants to avoid that confrontation at all costs. A showdown with Israel will split the Democrats, threaten campaign donations and distract attention and resources from his domestic agenda. But unless he is content with the status quo, he has no choice. If he wants to stabilize the Middle East, deal justly with the Palestinians, reduce the threat of jihadist terrorism and ensure a secure future for Israel, he will have to seize the third rail of American politics.
The fact is that the U.S. desperately needs a game changer in the Middle East, and brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace along the lines of the 2002 Saudi peace initiative or the 2003 Geneva Accord is the only game changer we have left.
Under Bush, the neoconservatives tried their own game changer, reversing the old mantra that the road to Tehran and Baghdad runs through Jerusalem. But it turned out conquering Baghdad did not open the way to an undivided, Israel-run Jerusalem. Israel's enemies, contrary to neoconservative dreams, did not cry uncle. In fact, the rejectionists among them are more powerful than ever.
The new Middle Eastern diplomatic detente leaves Obama only one way forward. If he wants to succeed, he will have to make it clear to the far-right Israeli government that it must stop settlements, return to its 1967 borders and accept a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
If Obama dares to do this, he will find himself in a political storm like none he has ever seen. But there is reason to believe that Americans are starting to think about Israel and Palestine in a new way. Israel's brutal attack on Gaza badly damaged its international standing: Only its most hard-line supporters defend that atrocity. Roger Cohen's confession in the New York Times that "I have never previously been so shamed by Israel" expresses a widespread sentiment. Even the Israel lobby's victory on Freeman may have been Pyrrhic. As IPS's Jim Lobe, whose reporting on the neoconservatives and the Israel lobby stands above all others, pointed out in a piece he co-wrote with Daniel Luban, the Freeman affair forced the mainstream media to at last acknowledge the elephant in the room: that there is an Israel lobby, and that it wields enormous power. (When Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published "The Israel Lobby" in 2007, they were widely accused of being anti-Semitic, scurrilous charges that have now mostly disappeared.) Unswerving support for Israel is still official America's default position, but it is becoming more and more hollow as politicians and American Jews alike begin to question whether such "support" is in America's, or even Israel's, interest.
Obama also has some political cover. The Iraq Study Group report made it clear that significant parts of the American foreign-policy establishment reject Bush's good-and-evil approach. Now, another blue-chip group of senior foreign policy officials, including Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, have urged the U.S. to open a dialogue with Hamas.
Paradoxically, the huge gulf between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government could actually make it easier for Obama to broker a peace deal. As veteran analyst Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, recently argued in Haaretz, center-left Israeli governments have never been willing to take the steps necessary to make peace: They have "used the peace process they champion as a cover for the continued expansion of settlements and the closing off of East Jerusalem to any future Palestinian entity." But American presidents have been unwilling to challenge any Israeli government that pays lip service to the two-state solution, which means that such governments can stall forever. By contrast, Siegman notes, "a Netanyahu-led government with coalition partners like Avigdor Lieberman and other extreme right-wing parties that do not enjoy much popular support in the U.S. (or anywhere else for that matter) would allow President Barack Obama and his administration to advance [a peace] initiative."
Finally, there is Obama himself. Elected to bring change, in the wake of a disastrous war whose intellectual architects were ardently pro-Israel, he has more of a mandate to change the imbalanced U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians than any recent president.
So Obama has the power, and probably the wisdom, to change America's misguided course in the Middle East. Whether he has the will, or the courage, is another question.
Obama took what many regarded as a backwards step even before assuming office by appointing Hillary Clinton, who supported the Iraq war and as senator toed the establishment line on Israel, as secretary of state. But then he gave his first presidential interview to the Arabic-language station al-Arabiya and announced that his administration would approach the Arab-Muslim world with a spirit of respect and willingness to listen. He said, "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." But then he named as his Iran advisor the right-leaning Dennis Ross, who signed a threatening Iran paper drafted by two hard-line neoconservatives, claimed, in a statement to Congress accompanying his renewal of sanctions against Iran, that the country posed "an extraordinary threat" to the U.S. and gave every indication that he would continue Bush's failed carrots-and-sticks approach. Obama has ordered a top-to-bottom strategic review of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, but sent 17,000 more troops there and has continued to assassinate militants in Pakistan with missiles fired from Predator drones. He announced that he was winding down the Iraq war, but is doing so at a hyper-cautious pace.
Not surprisingly, Obama's most contradictory messages concern the most important, and politically radioactive, issue of all: the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. His appointment of the respected negotiator George Mitchell as special envoy for the Middle East was taken as strong evidence that he was prepared to challenge Washington's blank-check support for Israel. In a major break with the Bush administration's refusal to deal with Hamas, Mitchell told Jewish leaders that a Palestinian unity government made up of the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority and Hamas would be "a step forward" for peace. Similarly, after Britain announced that it would break with U.S. and European policy by beginning low-level contacts with Hezbollah, an anonymous State Department official told reporters that the U.S. might enjoy some benefits from the diplomatic rapprochement. "We are looking for a comprehensive approach" in the Middle East, the official said. For her part, Secretary of State Clinton, on her first trip to the Middle East, criticized Israeli house demolitions in East Jerusalem, albeit in feeble, Condoleezza Rice-like terms as "unhelpful," and hinted that the Obama administration was prepared to challenge the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. She also pledged $900 million in U.S. aid to rebuild Gaza after Israel's devastating 22-day onslaught earlier this year.
All of these developments represent a significant change from Bush administration policies on Israel-Palestine. But the Obama administration's right hand proceeded to undo what its left one had done.
Having sent signals that it might be prepared to break with Bush's policy of excluding Hamas and Hezbollah, the Obama administration proceeded to exclude them. Secretary of State Clinton has continued the Bush administration policy of dealing only with Fatah, the dominant faction in the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud Abbas. She ordered that U.S. funds for Gaza go only to the PA, not Hamas. And in direct contradiction of the cautious support for a British-Hezbollah thaw expressed by an anonymous Obama official, another anonymous official sharply criticized it.
The most glaring sign that Obama might continue the status quo on Israel was his failure to defend Charles Freeman. Obama's director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, had asked Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, but the highly respected diplomat withdrew after he was heavily attacked by supporters of Israel, including neoconservative ideologues and politicians from both sides of the aisle, such as the Democratic New York senator Charles Schumer. "His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration," Schumer said. Obama's refusal to stand up for Freeman indicates that he is unwilling to challenge Washington's quasi-official, bipartisan policy of unswerving support for Israel, and raises serious questions about whether he will be prepared to confront the incoming right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. But if he fails to do so, all his diplomatic overtures in the region will only be so much hot air.
Obama has broken with Bush's Middle East policy in one key area: He is talking to more players in the region. The most notable difference concerns Syria. Bush demonized Syria as a junior-varsity member of the Axis of Evil and refused to deal with it, but Obama is talking to Damascus and encouraging it to resume peace negotiations with Israel. His strategic purpose is to drive a wedge between it and its fellow hardline state Iran, thus weakening the militant rejectionist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and strengthening Fatah. This is a good idea as far as it goes, and it represents a qualified change from the Bush strategy of trying to line up the "moderate" states of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan against the "extremist" ones, Iran and Syria and their militant clients.
The problem, however, is that it is only a qualified change, because Obama is still refusing to deal with Iran and the militant groups, hoping they can be marginalized. But they cannot be marginalized unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Obama can fiddle around the edges all he wants, make all the right noises, but unless he is willing to deal with the real problem, his Middle East policy will go nowhere.
His cautious and contradictory moves so far give the impression that Obama hopes that more diplomacy will somehow cause the chess pieces on the Middle East board to move in such a way that he will be able to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace without going head-to-head with Israel. But that hope is unrealistic.
Capitalizing on their fear of Iran, which his Iraq war greatly strengthened, Bush prodded the "moderate" Arab states to close ranks against the "extremists." So far, Obama is following a similar path -- with the only difference being that he has opened communication with Syria. But the "moderates," their legitimacy badly damaged by Israel's Gaza onslaught, never fully embraced that strategy, and they have now rejected it. They still distrust Iran, but they have come to realize that the only way to weaken it and its militant proxies is by addressing the root cause of extremism: the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. That's why the Arab states have been engaged in furious diplomacy in the run-up to the upcoming Arab League summit in Qatar -- including reaching out to Syria. The recent four-way meeting in Riyadh between King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Syrian president Bashir Assad, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah ended with a pledge to speak with one voice on Israel-Palestine.
The fact that all the Arab states have adopted a uniform position on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, demanding that it be resolved along the lines of the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, spells a death knell for Bush's attempt to use the "moderate" regimes' fear of their own Islamist radicals to sideline them on Israel-Palestine. And it puts the onus squarely on the U.S., and its client Israel, to take immediate and concrete steps towards a two-state solution.
Seen in this light, Israel's Gaza war was a major strategic blunder. Not only did it achieve nothing militarily -- the crude rockets it was ostensibly intended to stop continue to rain down, Hamas is more popular than ever, and Abbas is weaker -- but it united the Arab states against it. The Saudis and Egyptians fear Iran and were enraged after Syria's Assad derided them as "half-men" for failing to oppose Israel, but after Gaza they had no choice but to present a united front on Israel-Palestine. As Agence France-Presse reported on the recent Riyadh meeting, "[T]he Saudis see themselves as 'delivering' the Arabs to comprehensive peace talks, hoping to provoke the Obama administration to 'deliver Israel' -- regardless of who is leading Israel's government. Riyadh wants to maneuver Israel into 'a put up or shut up' situation, said one foreign analyst."
U.S. hopes that Syria can somehow be persuaded to break with Iran are misguided. As Syrian analyst Marwan Kabalan told the National, "Syria believes it can have good ties with Iran and America, that it does not have to choose between one or the other." The only way for America to undercut Iran, Kabalan said, was to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace. "The answer is the peace process, and not just a deal between Syria and Israel over the Golan," he said. "If you want to undercut Iran, you don't need to ask Syria to move away from Iran, you just need a fair peace. Peace will automatically mean that Hamas and Hizbollah are playing a more political role."
As Kabalan's comments suggest, neither Syria nor Iran is going to drop its support for the militant groups until there is a viable Palestinian state. Nor are Hamas and Hezbollah going to give up armed resistance until the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land ends. This leaves Obama no choice: If he wants to stabilize the Middle East, prop up the "moderate" regimes and disarm the militants, he has to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution. America's present policy, demanding that the rejectionist and radical Arab factions agree in advance to renounce violence and recognize Israel while not simultaneously demanding that Israel end the occupation and return to its 1967 borders, has not worked, will not work and is simply a recipe for a continued conflict. And time is not on Israel's side.
But demanding that Israel take the steps necessary to make peace means a harsh face-off with the Netanyahu government. If the Gaza war moved the Arab states to the left, it moved Israel to the right. On Monday, it was announced that Avigdor Lieberman, a bigoted ultra-nationalist who ran an explicitly anti-Arab campaign, would be Netanyahu's Foreign Minister -- the equivalent of Obama naming George Lincoln Rockwell or David Duke to be his secretary of state. The stage is set for a major collision.
Obama's cautious moves so far, and the lengths he went to before the election to assure right-wing American Jewish groups like AIPAC that he was staunchly pro-Israel, suggest that he wants to avoid that confrontation at all costs. A showdown with Israel will split the Democrats, threaten campaign donations and distract attention and resources from his domestic agenda. But unless he is content with the status quo, he has no choice. If he wants to stabilize the Middle East, deal justly with the Palestinians, reduce the threat of jihadist terrorism and ensure a secure future for Israel, he will have to seize the third rail of American politics.
The fact is that the U.S. desperately needs a game changer in the Middle East, and brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace along the lines of the 2002 Saudi peace initiative or the 2003 Geneva Accord is the only game changer we have left.
Under Bush, the neoconservatives tried their own game changer, reversing the old mantra that the road to Tehran and Baghdad runs through Jerusalem. But it turned out conquering Baghdad did not open the way to an undivided, Israel-run Jerusalem. Israel's enemies, contrary to neoconservative dreams, did not cry uncle. In fact, the rejectionists among them are more powerful than ever.
The new Middle Eastern diplomatic detente leaves Obama only one way forward. If he wants to succeed, he will have to make it clear to the far-right Israeli government that it must stop settlements, return to its 1967 borders and accept a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
If Obama dares to do this, he will find himself in a political storm like none he has ever seen. But there is reason to believe that Americans are starting to think about Israel and Palestine in a new way. Israel's brutal attack on Gaza badly damaged its international standing: Only its most hard-line supporters defend that atrocity. Roger Cohen's confession in the New York Times that "I have never previously been so shamed by Israel" expresses a widespread sentiment. Even the Israel lobby's victory on Freeman may have been Pyrrhic. As IPS's Jim Lobe, whose reporting on the neoconservatives and the Israel lobby stands above all others, pointed out in a piece he co-wrote with Daniel Luban, the Freeman affair forced the mainstream media to at last acknowledge the elephant in the room: that there is an Israel lobby, and that it wields enormous power. (When Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published "The Israel Lobby" in 2007, they were widely accused of being anti-Semitic, scurrilous charges that have now mostly disappeared.) Unswerving support for Israel is still official America's default position, but it is becoming more and more hollow as politicians and American Jews alike begin to question whether such "support" is in America's, or even Israel's, interest.
Obama also has some political cover. The Iraq Study Group report made it clear that significant parts of the American foreign-policy establishment reject Bush's good-and-evil approach. Now, another blue-chip group of senior foreign policy officials, including Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, have urged the U.S. to open a dialogue with Hamas.
Paradoxically, the huge gulf between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government could actually make it easier for Obama to broker a peace deal. As veteran analyst Henry Siegman, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, recently argued in Haaretz, center-left Israeli governments have never been willing to take the steps necessary to make peace: They have "used the peace process they champion as a cover for the continued expansion of settlements and the closing off of East Jerusalem to any future Palestinian entity." But American presidents have been unwilling to challenge any Israeli government that pays lip service to the two-state solution, which means that such governments can stall forever. By contrast, Siegman notes, "a Netanyahu-led government with coalition partners like Avigdor Lieberman and other extreme right-wing parties that do not enjoy much popular support in the U.S. (or anywhere else for that matter) would allow President Barack Obama and his administration to advance [a peace] initiative."
Finally, there is Obama himself. Elected to bring change, in the wake of a disastrous war whose intellectual architects were ardently pro-Israel, he has more of a mandate to change the imbalanced U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians than any recent president.
So Obama has the power, and probably the wisdom, to change America's misguided course in the Middle East. Whether he has the will, or the courage, is another question.
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