March 8, 2010

Foreign Policy

Everybody knows the core issues between Israelis and Palestinians, except for the one that will matter the most and can be acted on immediately, before any comprehensive deal; the one where Israel’s concessions will not compromise its security but enhance it. I am speaking of Palestine’s economy, specifically, its private sector, the driver of civil society and spine of any future state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about “economic peace,” but seems to mean little more than giving Palestinian laborers more jobs in Israeli agriculture and construction projects. What Palestinians need, rather, are entrepreneurs, managers, and professionals with the freedom to build a growing node in an urban and global network. The latter have made a remarkable start, but the occupation is thwarting them in ways few outsiders appreciate.

Yes, land claims, especially the division of sovereignty in Jerusalem, compensation for Palestinian refugees, etc., have great symbolic importance to both peoples. Yes, Jewish settlements confound efforts to draw borders and should be frozen; yes, moderates on both sides confront “whole land” fanatics they would rather not fight for the sake of the other side. Still, if we ever get to a deal, the size of each territory will quickly seem trivial.

Israel and Palestine, together, are about the size of greater Los Angeles; the distance from Nablus to Tel Aviv is something like San Bernardino to Santa Monica. The West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians say, is only 22 percent of historic Palestine. But that is about the size of the territory most Israelis live on. In fact, the corridor from Ashdod to north of Tel Aviv–where 40 percent of Israelis live, and at least half of Israel’s GDP is generated–is about the size of the Gaza Strip. Can we get real about what “two states” will look like?

Each side will be a culturally distinct city-state, building upwards, integrated with the other in a business ecosystem extending to Jordan, and sharing everything from water to currency, tourists to bandwidth. Over 80 percent of Palestine’s trade is with Israel. What won’t seem trivial is the capacity of Palestine’s economy–currently one-fortieth of Israel’s–to create employment. The mean age of Palestinians in the territories is about 19 years old. If we assume normal rates of growth, and the return of only half of the refugees to a Palestinian state, Palestine would soon become an Arabic-speaking metropolis of perhaps 6 million to 7 million people, radiating east from Jerusalem, and facing off against the Hebrew-speaking metropolis, anchored by Tel Aviv. Olive groves, picturesque as they are, will seem beside the point. So will military notions like strategic depth.

The good news is that the Palestinian private sector, though small, is prepared for a take-off. There is a tight-knit, highly competent Palestinian business class already running enterprises from pharmaceuticals to supermarkets, telecommunications to software solutions. Palestine’s billion dollar sovereign wealth fund, the PIF, has been investing strategically in construction and wireless telecommunications; it is transparently run by Mohammed Mustafa, a former World Bank official, close to Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad–in effect, the Ramallah bourgeoisie’s chairman of the board. The Palestinian stock market lists companies worth only about $2.5 billion, but it has been growing at over 20 percent a year. Palestinian universities graduate 1,200 computer scientists annually.

The Palestinian Authority gets about $2 billion from donor countries a year, a large portion of it wasted on patronage jobs.  Part of what has stifled entrepreneurship is old Fatah cadres running monopolies from cement to petroleum. But public sector salaries, along with remittances from family members working abroad, at least wind up in bank deposits. Bank of Palestine CEO Hashim Shawa estimates that about $6 billion in total deposits are available for investment in genuinely competitive ventures. At least twice that amount is in Palestinian-controlled banks in Jordan. Regional investors know Palestinians are relatively well educated and need one of everything.

Which brings us to the bad news. Revealingly, Palestinian banks have been unable to lend more than $1.5 billion to credit-worthy business plans. For when you look at all of the things an ordinary businessperson takes for granted–mobility, access to markets, talent, suppliers and financial services–you see the frustrating effects of an occupation designed to advance the settlers, not Palestinian development.

Problems of mobility are most widely reported: over 60 percent of land in the West Bank is so-called Area C–controlled by the Israeli army to secure Israeli settlements, but turning Palestinian cities into economic islands. Try growing a supermarket chain when your just-in-time logistics system has to deal with 600 roadblocks; try planning meetings to open a new store. The drive from Ramallah to Jerusalem should take about 12 minutes, but with the checkpoints, it’s normally an hour, and that’s if you have permission. A Palestinian businessman routinely waits a half day just to collect an Israeli permit to enter Jerusalem and begin the journey. The World Bank estimates that, in spite of a projected 6-7 percent growth, per capita GDP is falling and unemployment may be as high 20 percent.

But other problems are just as serious. Businesses need world-class managers, who have to be able to travel freely. Entrepreneurs from the Palestinian diaspora, if born abroad, have to fight for years to get residency permits. The handful who succeed cannot then use Ben Gurion Airport or come to Jerusalem, but suffer the same restrictions as locals. Components for Palestinian manufacturing are routinely held up in Israel ports, waiting for long security checks. (One Palestinian aluminum window manufacturer, denied a coating material that could be used to make explosives, offered to pay for IDF soldiers to supervise the entire process.) Palestinian banks cannot park their cash reserves in Israeli banks, losing tens of millions of dollars in interest. They also cannot set up branches or even ATMs in East Jerusalem, where unemployment is over 25 percent and 50 percent live under the poverty line.

I visited Ramallah’s $350 million Palestinian cell phone company, Jawwal, now facing real competition from the PIF-funded Wataniya. The CEO, Ammar Aker (recently promoted to run the $900 million parent company, Paltel), took me to the roof of his modern building and showed me what he sees. On one hill to the north is a settlement in Area C brandishing the tower of an Israeli operator, Cellcom.  To the south is another settlement with another tower. Cellcom gets about 10.5 megahertz of spectrum; Jawwal about 4.8 (spectrum, too, is a “security” asset). To get 3G and continuous coverage–what every Palestinian entrepreneur needs–you need to add a plan from an Israeli carrier.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been bragging about Palestine’s growth. But under current conditions, the resilience of its private sector seems little short of heroic. Surely, he must know there are things that must be done now. Israel should be inviting, not prohibiting, Palestinian entrepreneurs to come to the West Bank and invest. It should be greatly expanding the number of permits for businesspeople to come to Jerusalem. It should be allowing banks to operate here, thus stopping the city’s brain drain to Amman and Dubai. It should be assigning security forces to work with PA forces to expedite Palestinian supply chains. It should be authorizing the development of a secure, north-south transportation corridor linking Palestinian cities, perhaps picking up on the Rand Corporation’s brilliant idea of an “arc” of bus and rail lines. It should be releasing more bandwidth for Palestinian telecom, and restricting Israeli competition in Area C.

Netanyahu could do all of this today without endangering Israelis or even removing settlers yet. With so many Palestinians under 20, the economic disparities so great, and the territory so small, what can be more dangerous than continued stagnation?

February 24, 2010

Financial Times

The Middle East peace process and its quest for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict that got under way nearly 20 years ago with the Oslo accords has undergone two fundamental transformations. It is now on the brink of a third.

The first was the crossing of a threshold by Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank; there is no longer any prospect of its removal by this or any future Israeli government, which was the precise goal of the settlements’ relentless expansion all along. The previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who declared that a peace accord requires Israel to withdraw “from most, if not all” of the occupied territories, “including East Jerusalem,” was unable even to remove any of the 20 hilltop outposts Israel had solemnly promised to dismantle.

A two-state solution could therefore come about only if Israel were compelled to withdraw to the pre-1967 border by an outside power whose wishes an Israeli government could not defy – the US. The assumption has always been that at the point where Israel’s colonial ambitions collide with critical US national interests, an American president would draw on the massive credit the US has accumulated with Israel to insist it dismantle its illegal settlements, which successive US administrations held to be the main obstacle to a peace accord.

The second transformation resulted from the shattering of that assumption when President Barack Obama – who took a more forceful stand against Israel’s settlements than any of his predecessors, and did so at a time when the damage this unending conflict was causing American interests could not have been more obvious – backed off ignominiously in the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of his demand. This left prospects for a two-state accord dead in the water.

The disappearance of the two-state solution is triggering a third transformation, which is turning Israel from a democracy into an apartheid state. The democracy Israel provides for its (mostly) Jewish citizens cannot hide its changed character. A democracy reserved for privileged citizens while all others are denied individual and national rights and kept behind checkpoints, barbed wire fences and separation walls manned by Israel’s military, is not democracy.

At first, the collapse of the assumptions on which hopes for a fair and just resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict rested triggered much despair. But that despair has begun to turn to anger, and options for resolving the conflict, previously dismissed by the international community as unrealistic, are being looked at anew. That anger is also spawning a new global challenge to Israel’s legitimacy.

Anti-Semitic opponents of Israel will undoubtedly celebrate this emerging challenge to Israel’s incipient apartheid regime. But Israel will have only its own misguided policies to blame for its empowerment of this racist fringe. Such participation will no more detract from the inherent legitimacy of that challenge than Israel’s collaboration (on the development of atomic nuclear weapons) with a racist South African regime in the 1970s and 1980s provided democratic sanction for South Africa’s apartheid.

Mr Netanyahu’s government has hardly been indifferent to the seriousness of this challenge. A study by one of Israel’s leading policy institutes warning of this looming global threat to the country’s legitimacy was taken up by Israel’s cabinet, and described by its members as constituting as grave a danger to the country’s existence as the nuclear threat from Iran. Unfortunately – if predictably – the government’s response has been to mount a campaign to discredit critics as anti-Semitic enemies of Israel, rather than abandoning the policies that are transforming it into an apartheid state.

No country is as obsessed with the issue of its own legitimacy as Israel; ironically, that obsession may yet be its salvation. An international community angered and frustrated by Israel’s disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people, and determined to prevent their relegation to an apartheid existence, may well decide to have the United Nations General Assembly accept a Palestinian declaration of statehood within the pre-1967 borders, without the mutually agreed border changes that a peace accord might have produced. Nothing would challenge Israel’s legitimacy more than its defiance of such an international decision.

Prospects for such international action may serve as the only remaining inducement for Israel to accept a two-state solution. Not only its legitimacy but its survival as a Jewish and democratic state depends on it.

February 14, 2010

Haaretz

In his keynote address at last week’s Herzliya Conference, Ehud Barak summoned up the most dramatic case for changing the status quo:

If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic…If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.

This quote is particularly remarkable for the specific wording chosen by Israel’s defense minister: He (perhaps unintentionally) suggested that the existing situation could already be described as apartheid.

Considering the Labor Party’s collapse, one may dismiss its leader’s comments, but Barak’s speech does matter, not because of its author, but because it articulates the core narrative of the centrist-pragmatic trend in Israeli-Jewish politics – from Likud realists like ministers Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, to Kadima and the remnants of Labor and Meretz. Let’s call it the “retractionist camp” – ready to support a withdrawal from the occupied territories that meets the minimum necessary requirement for the creation of a dignified and viable sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, and therefore a sustainable two-state solution.

They show realist tendencies, but there is a powerful disconnect (one that was pervasive in Barak’s speech) between most of this camp’s diagnosis of the situation (an “end of the world as we know it” threat of apartheid or binationalism) and their prescription for addressing it: resume negotiations, blame the Palestinians, more of the same. It’s like telling someone they have life-threatening yet treatable cancer and prescribing two aspirins a day.

If the situation is so dire, then bolder steps are surely called for. There are any number of game-changing options to consider. Maybe it is possible to engage Hamas (as is happening in the ongoing Shalit negotiations), to lift the Gaza siege, and to accept Palestinian unity instead of vetoing it, so as to facilitate an empowered negotiating and implementing address. After all, Israel spoke to the PLO before its charter was amended, and the United States engaged Sunni ex-insurgents in Iraq and is encouraging dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Alternatively, Israel could encourage internationalization of the conflict, handing the territories over to an international protectorate and international forces, or could embrace Salam Fayyad’s two-year plan for statehood and scale back its Area C presence, or even withdraw to the 1967 lines while negotiating over a way settlers could reside under Palestinian sovereignty. Perhaps a Quartet-driven or imposed plan could be encouraged. Anything but business as usual.

Yet most of those in the camp that favors retracting Israel’s occupation – let’s call them “soft retractionists” – eschew such bold positions. Their opponents, the “retentionists,” support retaining all, most or at least enough control of the territories to render impossible a real two-state outcome (indeed, a commitment to retain all of Jerusalem under exclusive Israeli sovereignty is enough to negate a workable two-state option). Again, most retentionists belong in the “soft” category – they are ready to use the language of two states, and support negotiations, economic peace, even a partial easing of the West Bank internal closure. At the heart of both the retractionist and retentionist camps, in their “soft” manifestations, is a basic element of denial. Soft retentionists pretend that ongoing occupation can coexist with preservation of Israel’s democratic character, its security, international acceptance, and a consensus about it in the Jewish world. Making noise about peace and throwing money at public relations will do the trick. Soft retractionists pretend that the occupation can be undone without a fundamental change in approach, and in particular while maintaining existing incentive and disincentive structures (which produced and preserve the current realities).

But while the respective “soft” narratives are more pleasant to the ear, and easier to market, both are not only wrong but also increasingly irrelevant to Israel’s future. The real struggle for the country is between what are commonly labeled as the extremes.

Hard retentionists know they will have to rewrite the rules of democracy, and plead a special exemption clause for “Jewish democracy” and for the elevation of Jewish-only rights. Palestinians are to be dehumanized, human and civil rights groups and international humanitarian law excoriated and a vocabulary created for laundering and justifying an apartheid reality.

Hard retractionists will need to stand up for (long-ridiculed) Jewish values, ethics and morality, for the unloved “other” in society, hold up a mirror to the nations’ warts, and ultimately support international campaigns that distinguish between Israel proper and the occupied territories.

Both camps have a vision for the country’s future: the Jewish Republic of Israel – equal parts ethnocracy, theocracy and garrison state on the retentionist side, while for the retractionists, well, something that lives up to the words of Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Retentionist cooperation with racist European Islamophobes and American dispensationalist evangelists (for whom Jews have a particularly unenticing role to play during the anticipated Rapture and Second Coming) is considered legitimate and necessary and is embraced by the mainstream. But when retractionists make common cause with the global civil and human rights community, they are vilified as traitors by the mainstream.

The dominant discourse in Israel massively stacks the odds against the hard retractionists. The soft retractionists continue to feed that discourse even though it undermines the very outcome they know is necessary. Their frequent silence, no less than the settlers’ noise, is drowning out Israeli democracy. The hard retentionists are very well represented in the Knesset, while the hard retractionists can barely rely on a tiny and shrinking number of Jewish MKs.

It is the human and civil rights community, the New Israel Fund, the demonstrators at Sheikh Jarrah and the few brave public figures who have joined them – including David Grossman, Moshe Halbertal and Ron Pundak – who are now the standard-bearers and source of hope in this decisive phase of the struggle for Israel’s future.

February 7, 2010

Haaretz

Ehud Barak said what he had to say, Bashar Assad did not understand or maybe he did, Avigdor Lieberman uttered his usual concoction, Benjamin Netanyahu explained that “we want peace,” and life is good. Everything is all right. This week’s ruckus is over. All that remains is the media circus. Because war, we should recall, is not something Israel does in winter.

The chatter, on the other hand, works all year round and Lieberman is its strategic asset. Lieberman can babble on about the collapse of the Assad family’s rule, swear at Hosni Mubarak and ridicule Jordan. His importance at the Foreign Ministry compares only to that of the Strategic Affairs Ministry under Moshe Ya’alon or the Regional Development Ministry under Silvan Shalom. These three frustrated ministries fall under the category “we want peace” and have transformed chatter into policy.

But Lieberman is not really the problem. The root of evil is the hoax of “we want peace,” because Israel is not really interested in peace with Syria – not at the cost of withdrawing from the Golan Heights. Israel’s working assumption is that there is no rush for negotiations with Syria; our northern neighbor does not constitute a military threat and its regional position does not allow it to rally the support of other Arab countries to carry out a full-blown war. Syria can be threatened without risking damage.

Syria itself “contributed” to this Israeli approach by keeping the border calm for decades, and there is no way to convince Israelis, who understand only Katyushas and Qassam rockets, that Syria is a threat for which a single bed-and-breakfast needs to be removed from the Golan. The Syrian promise for the “fruits of peace” is also shoddy. Compared to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, Syria is not offering any real economic incentives to make peace.

But Syria holds an asset that Israel does not recognize. Peace at this time means the possibility that Israel’s strategic position in the Middle East and the world will change. Syria is a key country along a new axis being formed in the Middle East, which includes Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The backbone of this axis is economic, security and diplomatic cooperation that would replace the old axis of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Iran’s burgeoning political influence in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, the huge amounts of oil still available in Iraq, Turkey’s influence on Central Asia and its control over a gas pipeline to stretch from Iran to Europe, as well as the new link between Saudi Arabia and Syria and Syria’s great influence on Palestinian politics and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – all these may make this axis much more wealthy and influential in the next decade. So a very important arena of interests is forming, not only for Israel.

The United States of Barack Obama has already realized that Syria, with or without peace with Israel, is a country Washington needs to preserve its position in the region and beyond. A U.S. ambassador is expected to be sent to Damascus in the near future, and Europe is negotiating with Syria, not only on economics, but also on an entry point to the entire Middle East. Our friend Silvio Berlusconi should be asked about his view on Syria when his country’s trade with Damascus stands at about $2 billion, some 20 percent of overall trade between Syria and Europe.

Israel, which is used to examining the region through a lens that counts Hezbollah’s missiles and Hamas’ explosive barrels sent to sea, and which considers the prisoner numbers in the Gilad Shalit deal the crux of the security threat, is blind to the region’s strategic developments. The expression “we want peace,” which is void of substance, cannot even begin to express the folly and shortsightedness of Israel, which is shrugging its shoulders at a chance to reach peace with Syria, if for no other reason than to prevent a damaging blow from this new axis.

To this end, we need a statesman, not a comedian. The leader who can make Israelis understand that peace with Syria does not mean eating humus in Damascus but is an existential interest, no less important than blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But this is the kind of statesman we’re lacking. For the time being we have to make do with a thug who cries out – “hold me back!”

February 5, 2010

Globe and Mail

It’s been a year since the election that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power in Israel and, for most Israelis, it’s been the best year in recent memory. There has been almost no violence or breaches of security, and the country’s economy weathered the world recession remarkably well.

Israelis, for the most part, feel safe and secure, and the Prime Minister’s rating in public opinion surveys reflects that satisfaction: Mr. Netanyahu is retaining his hold on his centre-right supporters and is gaining support among voters in the centre and on the left. The only drop he has suffered is among voters of the far right who reject his temporary freeze on construction in some Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Now, it seems, 2010 is supposed to be even calmer. The country’s annual intelligence assessment released this week spoke of “low probability of war” and little likelihood of serious clashes.

But as veteran Israeli observers will tell you, when you hear such rosy forecasts, it’s time to head for the shelters.

“Experience in the Middle East shows that calm can turn into tension, and tension can turn into war, in an instant,” wrote Aluf Benn in yesterday’s Haaretz newspaper.

A flare-up in sabre-rattling with Syria is the exception that proved the rule. Syrian officials warned that, if there were a war, Israeli cities would become targets, and that drew a bellicose response from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said that, in that event, the Assad regime would be toppled.

Mr. Netanyahu moved swiftly to calm the waters and return matters to their previous quiet. Israelis were left scratching their heads about where all the rhetoric had come from.

It came, in fact, from an apparent misinterpretation by Damascus of remarks made earlier this week by Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and the current Defence Minister. Mr. Barak had told an audience that, if peace with Syria is not achieved, Israel could face an unnecessary war that would leave issues between the countries exactly where they are now.

It was intended as a cautionary note to Israelis not to be complacent, but it so surprised the regime of Bashar al-Assad that they took it for a threat. Perhaps it’s one of the consequences of not having a channel of communications between the two countries’ leaders.

Mr. Barak’s warning has fallen on deaf ears in Israel, where most people can’t imagine a peace that would entail giving back to Syria the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

“Why would we want do that?” people ask. “There’s no chance of war with Syria, and the Golan has become part of Israel. It’s a great place to visit during Passover.”

Mr. Barak is not alone in warning of the danger of complacency.

Jordan’s King Abdullah and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also have cautioned Israel about being too smug.

“Israel should give some thought to what it would be like to lose a friend like Turkey in the future,” Mr. Erdogan said this week.

It was Ankara that provided the good offices through which Israeli and Syrian officials conducted negotiations aimed at a peace agreement more than a year ago.

But the once-valued ally – Turkey and Israel even carried out joint military exercises – has been snubbed by the Netanyahu administration for having criticized Israel’s assault on Gaza early last year.

As for the Palestinians, with whom Mr. Netanyahu has yet to enter into peace talks, Mr. Barak also warned: “A deadlock will lead to another round of violence that will serve Hamas.”

Up to now, there has been little public pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to change things.

Most Israelis never encounter Palestinians, though most Israelis live within a few kilometres of them. Few Palestinians can enter Israel, including east Jerusalem, and almost no prudent Israelis ever journey into the Palestinian territories. Israelis are more likely to visit Rangoon than Ramallah.

Most of the Israelis who do come into contact with Palestinians are settlers, and that contact usually is through their car windows, as they whisk past Palestinians on the sides of the roads that carry Israelis to their settlements in the West Bank.

It is true that life is better these days for many Palestinians, as the Netanyahu government has removed many internal checkpoints and the Palestinian economy has blossomed.

But the comforts that have arrived in the West Bank’s major cities have yet to trickle down to the hundreds of Palestinian villages and smaller towns.

As well, the dream of statehood remains elusive, and the Palestinian Authority has a president whose term expired more than a year ago. The elected Palestinian Legislative Council has been suspended for almost three years.

President Mahmoud Abbas stands firm in his refusal to negotiate with Israelis until they cease construction in all settlements, including those in east Jerusalem. This position wins him a measure of respect, but the settlements continue to expand, and the rival Hamas organization grows stronger.

Rather than trying to find a solution in peace talks, the Palestinian Authority harasses Hamas officials and keeps some 600 Hamas members in jail. The result of such heavy-handedness is to distance many of the people from their rulers and to generate more support for Hamas.

Few Israelis, however, feel the need to press Mr. Netanyahu into ending this situation by agreeing to Mr. Abbas’s demand for a real halt to settlement construction.

To most Israelis, security is measured in whether they feel safe taking the bus or sitting in a popular café, both of which had been targets of suicide bombers in the past. By such measures, Israelis feel very safe. The last suicide bombing was five years ago and, for every warning from a King Abdullah or a Recep Tayyip Erdogan, there’s a Silvio Berlusconi or a Mike Huckabee to reassure Israelis they’re doing everything right.

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad has taken his case to the enemy’s camp, speaking this week at the annual Herzliya Conference, at which Israeli leaders regularly attend. He told his audience that, if Palestinians didn’t achieve statehood through negotiations, they would opt for a unilateral declaration of independence. His biggest task, he said, is constructing the infrastructure for such a day.

Mr. Fayyad is dead serious, and the prospect of a unilateral declaration and a campaign to win world support for the Palestinian state should jar Israelis out of their complacence. But the fact that he spoke in such a gathering of elite Israelis suggests he is more friend than enemy, so why worry?

President Barack Obama’s recent admission of failure to get Israeli-Palestinian peace talks started, meanwhile, has left the Netanyahu government gloating and the Israeli peace camp marginalized.

History, however, suggests this smugness could be the calm before the storm. In 1973, recalls Gideon Rafael, a former director general of foreign affairs, Israelis were brimming with confidence from their victory in the 1967 war and didn’t see the coming of the Yom Kippur War that would almost defeat them.

Similarly, in the wake of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and the successful routing of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon in 1982, Israel was blind to the advent of the Palestinian intifada in 1987 and the potency that campaign would have.

And in the late 1990s, Israel was basking in the glow of the Oslo peace process and was blind to the second, more violent intifada on the horizon.

Israelis aren’t likely to heed Ehud Barak’s warnings right now; they have been conditioned to reject criticism. And who can blame them? For 62 years, their little country has been mostly isolated and often at war. They don’t want to hear bad news just when things seem quiet.

But it’s got so that even great supporters of Israel can’t criticize it with impunity.

This week, a right-wing movement, Im Tirtzu, has launched a campaign against the New Israel Fund, a 30-year-old organization that supports various human-rights groups in Israel. It blasts the NIF for assisting Richard Goldstone, the South African judge whose report on the Gaza campaign raised questions about possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, and for supporting the idea of an independent inquiry into the Gaza assault.

On Thursday, NIF president Naomi Chazan was told by The Jerusalem Post that it was dropping her weekly column.

One more critical voice is quieted, and the rest of the country goes back to planning its Passover vacation.

February 4, 2010

Wall Street Journal

There is one obvious solution for Israel’s West Bank settlements that has been all but completely overlooked: Let the settlers continue living where they are, but in the state of Palestine.

As a conception, it’s stunningly simple. Its very obviousness has rendered it invisible, like something in one’s field of vision that goes unnoticed because it has been there all the time. If over one million Palestinian Arabs can live as they do in towns and villages all over Israel, why cannot a few hundred thousand Israeli Jews live, symmetrically, in a West Bank Palestinian state?

The West Bank settlers have not only been a major obstacle to the success of peace negotiations in the past, they have now turned into an obstacle to negotiations taking place at all. Although Israel, under heavy American pressure, has agreed to a 10-month freeze on new settlement construction, it has refused to suspend construction already under way or in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority, initially encouraged by American intimations of a more comprehensive Israeli gesture, has declared that it will not return to the negotiating table in its absence. Yet if the settlers could live under Palestinian sovereignty, what need would there be for a freeze at all? And why wrangle endlessly over where a tortuous border between Israel and Palestine should run so that a maximum of settlers ends up on the Israeli side and a minimum gets evicted from the Palestinian side if there is no inherent necessity for any to be on the Israeli side or for any to be evicted?

Because, you may say, the settlers have no right to be on Palestinian land to begin with. Or because they would not tolerate living under Palestinian rule. Or because the Palestinians would not tolerate them. Or because they and the Palestinians could never get along even with the best of intentions.

“They,” though, are hardly a monolithic group. They are a highly heterogeneous population, having in common only one thing: the fact that all live across the Israeli-Jordanian cease-fire line with which Israel’s 1948-49 war of independence ended, on land wrested by Israel when it conquered Jordan’s holdings west of the Jordan River in 1967. All are in “Area C,” the part of the West Bank that has remained, according to the terms of the 1993 Oslo agreement, under temporary Israeli jurisdiction.

Beyond that, however, the differences are great. Some settlements were built on former Jordanian government-owned land that passed to Israeli jurisdiction, some on land purchased from Palestinians, some on land that was expropriated. Some are 40 years old and some were established recently. Some are isolated outposts, some small villages, some medium-sized towns with six- and eight-story apartment buildings. Some settlers are living where they are, often in the more isolated areas of the West Bank, for religious or ideological reasons; others, generally closer to the old 1967 border, because they have found well-located and pleasant surroundings at affordable prices. There are those who would willingly accept compensation in return for being evacuated as part of a peace agreement and those who would resist evacuation with all their might.

And there are settlers, roughly 225,000, who live on the “Israeli” side of the anti-terror West Bank security fence and settlers, about 75,000, who live on its “Palestinian” side. (Another 200,000 Israelis living in parts of former Jordanian Jerusalem that were annexed by Israel in 1967 are not listed by Israeli statistics as settlers at all.) Approximately 1/20th of Israel’s Jewish population, the settlers’ numbers have grown by over 5% a year, some three times the national average—a figure due to in-migration, mostly of young couples, and a high birth rate.

Indeed, given the political uncertainty and physical risk of living in the West Bank, where Palestinian terror has stalked the settlers repeatedly, their increase has been phenomenal. In 1977, the year in which the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin, which had reined in settlement activity, was replaced by the pro-settlement Likud government of Menachem Begin, the West Bank’s Jewish population was barely 7,000. By 1988, it had grown to 63,000; by 1993, to 100,000; by 2006, to 230,000. And even with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current freeze on new West Bank building starts, enough pre-freeze units are under construction to ensure that this rate of growth continues through 2010.

By contrast, the Palestinian population of the West Bank, though also increasingly rapidly, has done so less spectacularly: it is currently guesstimated (agreed-on figures are impossible to come by) at about two million. Aren’t the Palestinians, then, justified in their alarm over settlement growth and their insistence that it be stopped? How can they establish a state of their own with a swelling Jewish minority with whom they live in relations of hostility?

This is a fair question that deserves an honest answer—the first part of which is that, even if the settlements were indeed an insurmountable obstacle to peace, Jews would still have a right to live in the West Bank, the hill country south and north of Jerusalem that has always been called by them Judea and Samaria. It was there that the Jewish people was born; that the Hebrew language originated; that the Bible was written and most of the events described in it took place; that the kings of Israel reigned and the Prophets of Israel spoke out. By what principle should Jews be able to live anywhere in the world except for the most traditionally cherished part of their ancestral homeland?

Nor is it true, conventional wisdom notwithstanding, that the settlements are “illegal.” The case for this belief rests almost entirely on the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, article 49(6) of which states that an occupying military power “shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Yet not only has Israel “deported” or “transferred” no one to the settlements, whose inhabitants are there of their own free will, it did not come into possession of the West Bank as an occupying power. [1]

This is because, after its 1967 victory, Israel had as good a legal claim on the West Bank as anyone. The Jordanian annexation of the area, while consented to by the same Palestinian leadership that rejected the 1947 United Nations partition resolution which would have created a Palestinian state then, was unrecognized by the rest of the world, and Jordan itself refused to make peace with Israel or accept the 1949 border as permanent. As the sole sovereign state to have emerged from British-Mandate Palestine, Israel, it can be maintained, was the West Bank’s legitimate ruler pending final determination of the area’s status.

Of course, it can be retorted that, however true, all this is irrelevant. In practice, Israel has behaved in the West Bank like an occupying power by systematically favoring the settlers over the Palestinian population, with whose interests and welfare it has rarely been concerned. This is a major reason why the Palestinians need a state of their own. And if they do, and if the settlers are in the way of it, must not the settlers go, no matter how great their theoretical right to live in the West Bank may be? When theory clashes with reality, must not reality come first?

It certainly must. But there is another reality as well. Even if all the settlers living on the “Israeli” side of the security fence end up in Israel in the land swap that has come to be an assumed part of any peace deal, the 75,000 who would find themselves in a Palestinian state happen to be the very element of the settler population—the ideological and religious militants living deep in Palestinian territory—who are most committed to being where they are. What does one do with them?

The standard answer is: one evacuates them by force, just as was done with the 8,000 settlers forcibly evicted in the summer of 2005 when Israel left the Gaza Strip. Whoever doesn’t want to leave the Palestinian state on his own two feet can be carried by his arms and legs.

But this cannot be done—and it cannot be done because of what happened in Gaza. To carry out the Gaza operation, Israel had to undergo months of agonizing debate that fractured its political party system; to divert a large part of its army and police force to the task in expectation of settler violence; to experience the national trauma of witnessing men, women and children literally dragged from their homes as Jews were in the past only by their persecutors in their countries of exile; to find itself saddled with a bill of billions of dollars for the evictees’ relocation and rehabilitation; and today, nearly five years later, to face the reality that many of them have had their lives severely disrupted and still lack permanent homes. If this is what happened with 8,000 settlers who did not resort to violence in the end, what will happen with 10 times that many who almost certainly will?

This is something the Israeli public is not prepared to find out. It is not going to let itself undergo a trauma 10 times greater than that of 2005 and it will not be pushed to, or over, the brink of civil war. It lacks the political will to oust the more militant settlers from their homes and it will not do so, no matter what the world expects of it or some of its own politicians say.

Clearly, these settlers do not want to be under Palestinian rule and would threaten violent resistance to it, too. But they would quickly find out that a Palestinian police force would not coddle them as Israeli governments have done, and paradoxically, because they attach a greater value to the Land of Israel than to the State of Israel, many of them might ultimately be willing, if they could have their civil and property rights safeguarded and continue to be Israeli citizens, to live in the land but outside the state. So might many of the more politically moderate ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews in the settlements, whose approach would be more pragmatic. Were they offered a status analogous, say, to that of French Canadians living in Vermont a short drive from the Quebec border, they might well prefer it to giving up their homes.

Needless to say, the Palestinians are not Vermonters and have no love for the settlers. Yet they, too, might agree to such an arrangement if there were substantial benefits in it for them. And there could be: a return to the 1967 frontier, the dismantling of the security fence, open borders with Israel, and the reciprocal right of Palestinians to live and work there as Palestinian citizens. Nor would the continued presence of the settlements on Palestinian territory choke Palestinian development as it does now, for while Area C occupies close to three-fifths of the West Bank, once it were under Palestinian jurisdiction, the settlements themselves would remain with only a tiny fraction of the West Bank’s land.

Granted, the settlers living in a Palestinian state would constitute a potential tinderbox that, given the built-in tensions between them and the Palestinian population, could flare up at any time. Preventing this from happening would depend on both them and on the Palestinian government, both of which would have to curb extremist elements. Yet the fact that the settlers would not have Palestinian citizenship would isolate them from the Palestinian political process and remove some points of friction, and if their Palestinian neighbors felt that they, too, were the recipients of a fair deal, the moderates among them might well prevail. And there would be an advantage in each country playing host to a large number of the other’s citizens, for each would in effect be holding a body of hostages that it would have to treat well.

It would be difficult. It would be complicated. It would be risky for both sides. But isn’t it at least worth thinking about? Not a conventional two-state solution, and not a disastrous one-state solution, but a Palestinian-Israeli federation with Palestinians in Israel and Israelis in Palestine. It may be the only real solution now left.

Hillel Halkin is an American-born author and translator who has lived in Israel for the past 40 years.

[1]   Editor’s Note: Israel’s status as an occupying power in the West Bank, along with the illegality of Israeli settlement activity, is clearly recognized under international law, as reflected in a decision of the International Court of Justice on July 7, 2004. For details, see “The Israel-Palestine Conflict in International Law: Territorial Issues,” by Iain Scobbie and Sarah Hibbin.

January-February 2010

Settlement Report, Foundation for Middle East Peace

After a year of well-intentioned but counterproductive diplomatic effort, President Barack Obama’s interest in and ability to achieve a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians appear to be waning.

In a common assessment of the impact of the stunning Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, Ha’aretz’s Aluf Benn wrote, “Obama spent his first year in office on fruitless diplomatic moves that failed to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians. From now on, it will be harder for Obama. Congressional support is essential to the political process and in the current political atmosphere in the U.S.—in which the parties are especially polarized—Netanyahu can rely on Republican support to thwart pressure on Israel.”

In comments to Time magazine (see page 8), Obama placed himself at the head of a growing chorus of voices expressing disenchantment with a diplomatic impasse that Washington’s efforts during the past year have, if anything, exacerbated. Notwithstanding extraordinary declarations over the past year by U.S. officials of an American national interest in a solution to the conflict, there is today an unprecedented lack of clarity to U.S. intentions and, as a consequence, to the stalled diplomatic effort spearheaded by Washington. Just days after special envoy George Mitchell, in an extended television interview, spoke at length of the continuing U.S. commitment to progress (see story page 10), the president’s statements, made on the eve of Mitchell’s visit to the region, were widely interpreted as an admission of failure and lowered expectations (see story page 7).

This atmosphere is being fed by the absence of an agreed upon mechanism for diplomatic engagement, a situation not experienced since the darkest days of the second intifada.

U.S. officials have recognized since mid-year that their promotion of a settlement freeze was an impediment rather than a gateway to negotiations on issues of final status (see story page 4). The damage sustained in that effort, however, has continued to plague U.S. efforts to create an agreed foundation for a renewal of talks. “As long as settlement activity does not stop and we don’t know which international principles will guide the peace talks,” explained Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Mahmoud Abbas, “we won’t return to the negotiating table with Israel.”

Since late summer 2009, the U.S. has been anxious to move beyond the focus on a settlement freeze that it earlier championed. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton now notes frequently that “Resolving borders resolves settlements; resolving Jerusalem resolves settlements.” The U.S. effort has been focused since October 2009 on winning Israeli and Palestinian agreement to “terms of reference” that will enable a renewal of direct talks aimed at establishing an agreed upon border within nine months. “The United States,” reiterated Clinton on January 8, 2010, “believes that through good faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”

Both Israeli prime minister Benjamin Natenyahu and Abbas well understand that Washington’s aspiration to solve the conflict creates a contest for each to tilt the new, emerging “rules of the game” in their favor. Neither has been satisfied by Washington’s effort. Obama’s downbeat assessment, followed by his domestic political travails, has discouraged Palestinian expectations of effective Ameri−can leadership, while encouraging Netanyahu and his political allies in their belief that just as with the settlement freeze, an American peace “plan” can be neutralized.

An effort to stack the American diplomatic effort with “made in Israel” ideas is at the heart of Netanyahu’s negotiating agenda. On the one hand, there is an ongoing effort to win U.S. endorsement of Israel’s security agenda on the West Bank as it has in Gaza, including a permanent Israeli military presence in the West Bank and control of the border with Jordan, as well as support for the vague concept of “settlement blocs” to be annexed by Israel. On the other hand, Israel’s domestic political-security scene is moving incrementally toward a (unilateral) disengagement on the West Bank, an idea most recently championed by former minister of defense Shaul Mofaz, to establish a Palestinian entity on 60 percent of the West Bank. The territorial basis for an Israeli redeployment was foreshadowed in both the 1995 Oslo II accords that established Areas A and B on 41 percent of the West Bank and the map produced by Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002 and the “closure” policy that followed. Israeli commentator Ben Kaspit noted that “the Mofaz plan is actually the Peres plan, which is also in fact the Barak plan. And if you think about it, it is also the Netanyahu plan.”

January 22, 2010

Ha’aretz

[Appeared in Hebrew, translation by Zalman Amit and Daphna Levitt.]

The occupation of the territories in 1967 resulted from military action, but the military element quickly became secondary, while the “civilian” component,-settlements,-became the dominant factor, subjugating the military to its needs and turning the security forces into a militia in the service of the Jewish ethnic group. Eventually, settlements themselves were no longer as meaningful as they once had been.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the very fact of building and populating settlements at any given spot in the territories played a vital role in the creation of political faits accomplis. Those who planted the settlements in the Katif Block in the Gaza strip, or in the heart of Samaria and northern Judea, assumed that the Palestinians would forever remain submissive; otherwise, how could one explain the logic of establishing Jewish islands in the heart of Arab populations? The settlers argued that from the very beginning, Zionism flew in the face of reality. It succeeded, they said, precisely because it ignored reality. Therefore, the demographic and geographic arguments used against the settlers evaporated in the fervor of their fantasies.

Settlements as museum exhibits

Sometime in the late 1980s, the settlements crossed the critical threshold beyond which continued demographic and urban growth were assured. Settler leaders successfully set up a powerful lobby that straddled the Green Line. And thus the legal and physical infrastructure, making the de facto annexation of the territories possible was firmly in place. From that point on, the number of settlements, and even the size of their population, became immaterial because the apparatus of Israeli rule was perfected to such a degree that the distinction between Israel proper and the occupied territories—and between settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jewish communities inside Israel—was totally blurred. Similarly, the takeover of land ceased to be chiefly for the purpose of settlement construction and became primarily a means of constricting the movements of the Palestinian populace and of appropriating their physical space.

In the new paradigm the settlements no longer have importance as instruments of spatial control. The separation barrier/wall and its gates, the “sterile roads,” and a myriad of military regulations have taken the place of the settlements as symbols of Zionism.

Nevertheless, most settlements, large and small alike, have continued squandering public resources on a colossal scale while falsely claiming to be “foci of Zionist ideological endeavor” and necessary for security. Forty years after the establishment of the first settlement, “the settlement”—like the kibbutz and the moshav and like the tower-and-stockade colonies of the pre-state era—became just another exhibit in the museum of Zionist antiquities. The age of ideology is over and erecting settlements, as well as dismantling them, has become an outdated pastime with no real impact on political developments, except as a symbol and a mobilizing device for both right and left.

The attempt to mark the settlements—and the settlers—as the major impediment to peace is a convenient alibi, obfuscating the involvement of the entire Israeli body politic in maintaining and expanding the regime of coercion and discrimination in the occupied territories, and benefiting from it.

By the late 1980s, after two decades of occupation, Israeli control of the territories beyond the Green Line has become quasi- permanent, differentiated from sovereign rule only vis-à-vis the Palestinian residents: As far as Israeli citizens and their range of interests are concerned, the annexation of the territories is a fait accompli. Defining the territories as “occupied” is, in fact, an attempt to depict it as a temporary condition that will end “when peace comes,” and is designed to avoid resolving, “in the meantime”, immediate dilemmas. The term is a crutch for those who seek optimistic precedents, allowing them to believe that just as all occupations end, this one will too. This linguistic choice thereby contributes to the blurring and obfuscation of the reality in the territories, thus abetting the continuation of the status quo.

Quasi stable status quo

The continuation of the status quo creates a quasi-stable situation: the Jewish community, a loose framework of cultures and ethnic tribes in constant tension, is held together by enmity to the Palestinian “Other”, and by a determination to rule them. The unity vis-à-vis the outside world enables it to maintain control and to successfully implement a strategy of fragmentation of the Palestinian community.

The “Divide and Rule” strategy is a notorious device of colonial power except that here it is implemented in the 21st century, in an era that perceives imperialist traditions as a disgraceful chapter in the history of the western world. The Palestinian people have been fragmented, over the last three generations, into splinters. They have not merely been crushed by force but also have taken upon themselves split identities and have surrendered to agendas, dictated to them: the Palestinian Authority ostensibly represents the Palestinian people but, actually, represents only the Palestinian splinter that lives in the West Bank and is struggling, through the “peace process”, to get better conditions for merely one quarter of the entire Palestinian nation. The residents of East Jerusalem want only to be left alone and not to be forced (”out of patriotism”) to forego the privileges they enjoy as Israeli residents; in the debate over detaching peripheral Arab neighborhoods, the residents of East Jerusalem support continued annexation to Israel. The Palestinian Israelis (”Israeli Arabs”) are fighting for recognition as a “national minority” and demand equal individual and collective rights within the Israeli polity. They do not tie their struggle to the struggle of their brethren who live on the other side of the separation fence/wall. The Palestinian Israelis are fighting for “Equality” and “Citizen Rights” whereas the Palestinians in the occupied territories are fighting for “Self Determination”. The Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip are not interested in the implications of their rhetoric on the interests of the entire Palestinian nation. And those in the Diaspora continue to carry around the keys to the homes they left in 1948 and to dream about “The Return.”

The process of splitting up into sub-communities has not yet reached its consummation, and the political, economic and security constraints are deepening the entrenchment of the divided identities, which slowly assume separate cultural and even linguistic characteristics. Over the generations the Zionist enterprise, whose development challenged the Palestinian Arab community, and thus helped its unification into a distinct national group, became the dominant force under whose fist the Palestinian community has been shattered.

Process of Palestinian fragmentation

Fragmentation became the major tool of Israeli control, to preserve their rule over Israel/Palestine from the river to the sea. Fragmentation serves them as insurance against the “demographic threat” when, very soon, the Palestinians achieve a numerical majority in the region. The ruling Jewish community will continue, even when it becomes a minority, to force this split on the Palestinians with the usual carrots and sticks, dictating the agenda, presenting threats, imposing collective punishments and bribery. This will preserve and even deepen the lack of coordination, the conflicting interests of the splintered Palestinian communities and insure the dominance of the internally fragmented but externally cohesive Jewish community over the fragmented Palestinians, thus sustaining the status quo.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the policy of fragmentation was aimed at the small minority of “Israeli Arabs.” Now it is being put into practice in the most sophisticated fashion against five million Palestinians, attracting almost no attention. It is not accidental that Israeli propaganda has no interest in stressing the achievements of the fragmentation; On the contrary, Israel aims the bogey of “existential threat” against a monolithic adversary, to rally against “the dark forces of Islamo-fascism.” In this, they are unwittingly assisted by leftist circles and the “Peace Camp” that remain steadfast to the romantic notion about a cohesive Palestinian people, united in its struggle for freedom, They are joined by Palestinian spokesmen who view talk about the success of fragmentation as hostile propaganda. Even those who are informed and knowledgeable are surprised when the extent of the fragmentation process is brought to their attention. Attention is diverted to marginal issues, and various competing organizations are supporting each fragmented group, pursuing different agendas and clamoring for attention, thus exacerbating the fragmentation, and increasing the confusion. The paradox is that serious attempts to deal with separate Palestinian agendas, which purport to challenge the status quo, are actually strengthening it.

The high profile of “international relations” and the diplomatic discourse is the most glaring example. Useless negotiations and lengthy expert discussions on “core issues” are going on decade after decade without any change in the stale arguments and counter arguments, while the reality is transformed and the “peace process” serves as a curtain behind which divide- and –rule is entrenched.

A unique concept of sovereignty

The traditional Zionist stance of denying the very existence of a Palestinian nation cannot serve as a response to the Palestinian demand for self determination in the occupied territories. Still the Israelis seek to limit their conception to a mere quarter of Palestinians, those who live in the West Bank. For them they have invented a unique concept of a “state”: its “sovereignty” will be scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world, and limited to the height of it residential buildings and the depth of its graves. The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control. Helicopter patrols, the airwaves, the hands on the water pumps and the electrical switches, the registration of residents and the issue of identity cards, as well as passes to enter and leave, will all be controlled (directly or indirectly) by the Israelis. This ridiculous caricature of a Palestinian state, beheaded and with no feet, future, or any chance for development, is presented as the fulfillment of the goal of symmetry and equality embodied in the old slogan, “two states for two peoples.” It is endorsed, even by staunch supporters of “Greater Israel”, and the traditional “peace camp” rejoices in its triumph.

Large segments of the Israeli “Peace Camp”, who staunchly believe in “Partition of the Land” as a meta-political tenet, are gratified; they believe that they won the ideological, historical, debate with the Right. Now they can load the entire Palestinian tragedy on an entity that comprises less than 10% of the area of historic Palestine. Moreover it is supposed to offer a solution to all refugees outside Palestine “who can return to the Palestinian mini-state”, and also provide remedy to the Israeli –Palestinians who can achieve their collective rights in the Palestinian State. Indeed, a cheap and convenient solution; after all, it is seemingly based on the venerable model of the “national conflict” and the classic solution of two states for two peoples.

But how did it come to pass that Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu, scions of the “Nationalist Camp” became champions of the” Palestinian Nation-State”? What brought those who believed that there is only one legitimate collective entity–and the Palestinians are merely terrorist gangs—to declare that the conflict is national and therefore the solution is partition between “two nation states”? This was caused by the Palestinians who by launching the al-Aqsa intifada compelled the Israelis to realize that they are irrepressible and cannot be ignored or deported. The intifada forced the Israelis, for the first time in their history, to delineate the geographic limits of their expansion, construct fences and roadblocks and abandon populated areas that could upset the demographic balance. The remaining areas, fragmented and non-viable, can be declared as a Palestinian state.

Erasing from consciousness

This realization came at a steep price for intercommunal relations. The violent events of the intifada brought the Jewish-Israeli public to a crossroads in relation to their neighbors-enemies. For the first time since the tragic encounter began more than a century ago, the Jews turned their backs to the Palestinians, erasing them from their consciousness, imprisoning them behind impenetrable walls. The Jews became willing to congregate in a ghetto and pray that the Mediterranean might dry up or a bridge be built to connect them with Europe. This mentality is manifested in two, recently constructed, architectural monuments whose symbolism transcends their functional value: The gigantic separation barrier/wall and the colossal Ben Gurion air terminal. The former is meant to hide the Palestinians and erase them from Israeli conciseness and the latter serves as an escape gateway.

Ostensibly this is not new: The Jewish public has always alienated and disregarded the Arabs. But it was an intimate disregard, similar to a person’s approach to his own shadow; one can ignore it but never be rid of it. The process of mental disengagement is a continual one, but there is no doubt that the emergence of suicide bombers hastened it. There could not be any intimate regard for a culture that nurtures such a monstrous phenomenon, and the Palestinians were thereby complicit in bringing about the divorce imposed upon them. Racist right-wing circles exploit the situation and turn diffuse emotions into a practical plan for “transfer” (or expulsion) and denial of civil rights; human rights activists beg for resistance to the injustices and meet with indifference; political movements thrive on erasing the Arabs from Israeli awareness; and those who caution that (it is all an illusion, that) millions of human beings cannot be erased, are treated with hostility. The Israeli right shows contempt toward the Arab “rabble” and believe that it is possible to control them by tricks and threats, and the Israeli left plays with theoretical peace plans and refrains from involvement in the daily hardship of the Palestinian population; everybody joins in chanting the slogan: “we are here and they are there”.

Durable status quo

The conclusion that Israel will continue to manage the conflict by fragmenting the Palestinians is realistic. The status quo will endure as long as the forces wishing to preserve it are stronger than those wishing to undermine it, and that is the situation today in Israel/Palestine. After almost half a century, the Israeli governing system known as “the occupation”–which ensures full control over every agent or process that jeopardizes the Jewish community’s total domination and the political and material advantage that it accumulates– has become steadily more sophisticated through random trial and error an unplanned response to some genetic code of a supplanting settler society.
This status quo, which appears to be chaotic and unstable, is much sturdier than the conventional description of the situation as “a temporary military occupation” would indicate. Precisely because it is constitutionally murky and ill defined, its ambiguity supports its durability: it is open to different and conflicting interpretations and seems preferable to apocalyptic scenarios, therefore persuasive.

The volatile status quo survives due to the combination of several factors:

1. Fragmentation of the Palestinian community and incitement of the remaining fragments against each other.

2. Mobilization of the Jewish community into support for the occupation regime, which is perceived as safeguarding its very existence.

3. Funding of the status quo by the “donor countries”.

4. The strategy of the neighboring states which gives priority to bilateral and global interests over Arab ethnic solidarity.

5. Success of the propaganda campaign known as “negotiations with the Palestinians,” which convinces many that the status quo is temporary and thus they can continue to amuse themselves with theoretical alternatives to the “final-status arrangement.”

6. The silencing of all criticism as an expression of hatred and anti-Semitism; and abhorrence of the conclusion that the status quo is durable and will not be easily changed.

Internal changes

One must not surmise that the status quo is frozen; on the contrary, actions taken to perpetuate it bring about long term consequences. Cutting off Gaza is not a temporary but a quasi permanent situation which will affect the future of the Palestinian people. The severance of Gaza from the West Bank creates two separate entities, and Israel can record another victory in the fragmentation process: 1, 5 million Palestinians are on their way to achieve a caricature of a state that encompasses 1. 5% of historic Palestine where 30% of their people reside.

The West Bank canton, whose area is rapidly shrinking due to massive settlement activity, is considered the heart of the Palestinians under occupation. However, it is experiencing rapid political and economic developments that resemble those experienced by Israeli-Palestinians after 1948, with obvious differences due to historical circumstances and population size. It seems that many West Bankers have genuinely grown tired of the violence that led them to disaster [DL1] t , which forces the Israelis to relate to their non-violent struggle and to their community’s accumulation of economic and socio-cultural power.

All these and other changes in the status quo, are significant yet internal, and take place under the umbrella of Israeli control that can speed them up or slow them down, according to its interests. However, without the sanction, or at least the indifference of external powers, the status quo would not endure. Massive financial contributions free Israel from the burden of coping with the enormous cost of maintaining the control over the Palestinians and create a system of corruption and vested interests. The artificial existence of the PA in itself perpetuates the status quo because it supports the illusion that the situation is temporary and the “peace process” will soon end it.

Economic disparity

Usually the emphasis is on the political and civil inequality and the denial of collective rights that the model of partition–or the model of power sharing–is supposed to solve. But the economic inequality, the greater and more dangerous inequity , , which characterizes the current situation, will not be reversed by either alternative. There is a gigantic gap in gross domestic product per capita between Palestinians and Israelis–which is more than 1:10 in the West Bank and 1:20 in the Gaza Strip–as well as an enormous disparity in the use of natural resources (land, water). This gap cannot endure without the force of arms provided so effectively by the Israeli defense establishment, which enforces a draconic control system. Even most of the Israelis who oppose the “occupation” are unwilling to let go of it, since that would impinge on their personal welfare. All the economic, social and spatial systems of governance in the occupied territories are designed to maintain and safeguard Israeli privileges and prosperity on both sides of the “Green Line”, at the expense of millions of captive, impoverished Palestinians.

One must therefore seek a different paradigm to describe the state of affairs more than forty years after Israel/Palestine became one geopolitical unit again, after nineteen years of partition. The term “de facto bi-national regime” is preferable to the occupier/occupied paradigm, because it describes the mutual dependence of both societies, as well as the physical, economic, symbolic and cultural ties that cannot be severed without an intolerable cost. Describing the situation as de facto bi-national does not indicate parity between Israelis and Palestinians–on the contrary, it stresses the total dominance of the Jewish-Israeli nation, which controls a Palestinian nation that is fragmented both territorially and socially. No paradigm of military occupation can reflect the Bantustans created in the occupied territories, which separate a free and flourishing population with a gross domestic product of almost 30 thousand Dollars per capita from a dominated population unable to shape its own future with a GDP of $1,500 per capita. No paradigm of military occupation can explain how half the occupied areas (”area C”) have essentially been annexed, leaving the occupied population with disconnected lands and no viable existence. Only a strategy of annexation and permanent rule can explain the vast settlement enterprise and the enormous investment in housing and infrastructure, estimated at US$100

History of bi-national-partition dilemma

The bi-national versus partition dilemma is not new to either national movement. The Palestinians, who rejected the 1947 UN partition resolution, stated in their National Covenant, that Palestine “is one integral territorial unit”. This principle evolved in the 1970s to the concept of “democratic non-sectarian (or secular) Palestine “. In 1974 PLO political thinking began to grapple with the idea of partition. The formula endorsed was the Phased Plan: “We shall persevere in realizing the rights of the Palestinian People to return, and to self determination in the context of an independent national Palestinian state in any part of Palestinian soil, as an interim objective, with no compromises, recognition, or negotiation”. In 1988 this strategy was changed through negotiations to the present formula of partition along the 1967 armistice lines,. Thus, Palestinian acceptance of the partition option is only two decades old.

Until the mid 1940s, the Zionist officially defined its ultimate national objectives exclusively by the general formula of the transformation of Palestine (Eretz Israel) into an independent entity with an overwhelming Jewish majority. The ultimate objective of all national movements, the creation of a sovereign state, was implied in Zionist self-identification as s national liberation movement. However, the debate on the merits of emphasizing that ultimate objective continued throughout the history of the Zionist movement. The official leadership concentrated on formulating intermediate political objectives and those changed according to political conditions. These objectives (in chronological order) were: a national home, unrestricted immigration and the creation of a Jewish majority, “organic Zionism” (i.e., settlement and an independent Jewish economic sector); power-sharing (”Parity”) with the Arabs (irrespective of size of population); a bi-national state; a federation of Jewish and Arab cantons; partition. Only in the early 1940s the Zionists openly and officially raised the demand for a sovereign Jewish state. The territorial objectives of the Zionist movement were also ambiguous. The agreement to the partition of Palestine (1936, 1947) was accepted by many as merely a phase in the realization of the Zionist aspirations, but also (by some) as a fundamental compromise with the Palestinian national movement.

During the Mandate period the bi-national idea was acceptable to the Zionist establishment, including Haim Weizman and David Ben-Gurion. However, one must remember that the Jews were a minority and the demand for a Jewish state was s impudent; power sharing, and even parity, sounded better. Also, a federation of cantons could have evened out the huge Arab demographic lead. The choice between bi-nationalism and partition was made twice: in 1936 the Peel Commission rejected the Cantonization Plan of the Jewish Agency and chose partition; in 1947 the UN General Assembly voted for partition and rejected the minority plan for a federal state.

Only a marginal group of Jewish intellectuals considered the bi-national state as the only way to avoid endless bloody conflict. They sought to emulate the Swiss model, accentuated the principle of parity but did not elaborate the details. Indeed, there was no need for such elaboration since both the Palestinians and the Zionists rejected the bi-national idea, and most Jews considered it treason. Hashomer Hatzsair movement adopted some elements of the bi-national model, but the establishment of the State in 1948 called off the initiative. The opinion that the realization of Zionism can only be achieved by a sovereign Jewish state triumphed, and those who dare to challenge this precept are considered traitors.

After the 1967 war the Israeli political Right played with the concept of bi-nationalism, in the shape that suited its ideology (the Autonomy Plan). Likud ideology rejected the” transitory” nature of Israeli occupation but its belief in “Greater Israel” clashed with the demographic reality, and liberal circles in Likud (led by Menachem Begin) struggled with the famous dilemma: a Jewish or democratic state? Begin’s answer was based on the (failed) system known to him in Eastern Europe after WW1—non- territorial, cultural and communal autonomy for ethnic minorities under the League of Nations minority treaties. Begin’s Autonomy Plan had been modified in the Camp David (1978) accords and territorial components were added. The Oslo model used many components (with major changes) of Begin’s Autonomy Plan, and the Oslo accords can be viewed as bi-national arrangements, because the territorial and legal powers of the Palestinian Authority are intentionally vague; the external envelope of the international boundaries , the economic system, even the registration of population, remained under Israeli control. Moreover, the complex agreements of Oslo necessitated close cooperation with Israel which, considering the huge power disparity between the PA and Israel, meant that the PA was merely a glorified municipal or provincial authority. So, in the absence of any political process, a de-facto bi-national structure, was willy-nilly, entrenched.

Description, not prescription

It is no longer arguable; the question is not if a binational entity be established but rather what kind of entity will it be. The historical process that began in the aftermath of the 1967 War brought about the gradual abrogation of the partition option, if it ever existed. Hence, bi-nationalism is not a political or ideological program so much as a de facto reality masquerading as a temporary state of affairs. It is a description of the current condition, not a prescription.

January 20, 2010

New York Times

BERLIN — There are some foreign policy issues that Angela Merkel does not like to talk about. One is Afghanistan. The other is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So when she was asked about Israel’s settlement policy and the blockade of Gaza during a joint news conference here Monday with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, she minimized the issue. It was time to restart the peace process, she said, moving quickly to another topic.

German leaders find it very difficult to criticize Israel because of the responsibility Germany bears for the Holocaust and their commitment to the existence of the state of Israel. This is true of Mrs. Merkel in particular, who wants to forge a much closer relationship with Israel. The chancellor’s position has made it even more difficult for the European Union to speak with one voice on the Middle East.

But Mrs. Merkel’s policy is inconsistent. When she was first elected chancellor in late 2005, she placed much emphasis on human rights and freedom. She criticized China’s human rights policy and made the highly controversial decision to meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in the Chancellery in 2007. China warned of dire consequences, such as severing lucrative trade contracts. Aside from the cancellation of a few high-level meetings, little happened.

When Mrs. Merkel met nongovernmental organizations that Vladimir V. Putin had tried to ban, the relationship between Berlin and Moscow became frosty. That was all.

But as far as the Middle East is concerned, Mrs. Merkel has paid scant attention to the miserable living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israel’s settlements and detention policies. German legislators and analysts say that of all chancellors of the postwar period, Mrs. Merkel is considered the most pro-Israeli. “The chancellor is particularly close to Israel,” said one conservative legislator, Ruprecht Polenz, who is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Parliament.

So close that Mrs. Merkel was muted in her criticism of Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip in late 2008, which killed many civilians. In contrast, when the Iranian authorities used force last year against the opposition, which was claiming that the presidential elections had been rigged, Mrs. Merkel took an admirable stance, becoming one of the few leaders to publicly criticize the regime, even calling for new elections.

Mr. Polenz says that every German chancellor is responsible, rightly, for defending Israel because of the Holocaust. When it comes to Berlin’s relationship with the Middle East, “we are not neutral,” he said. “But that does not mean we cannot speak our minds to our Israeli friends.”

It is different with Mrs. Merkel. As chancellor, she set herself three foreign policy objectives: better relations with the United States, a much closer relationship with Israel and the integration of the European Union. These issues, said Gerd Langguth, a political science professor at Bonn University and Mrs. Merkel’s biographer, “are what Mrs. Merkel inherently believes in.”

Since the global financial meltdown, relations between the chancellery and President Barack Obama have become strained, not least because the United States openly criticized Germany for not doing enough to stem the crisis. As for E.U. integration, which depends on France and Germany cooperating, it has gone nowhere. Mrs. Merkel and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have proposed no new initiatives that would make Europe more coherent and credible as a global player. Mrs. Merkel has also often put German interests before Europe’s.

The only success is Israel. “Mrs. Merkel has an emotional relationship with Israel and the Jewish people,” Mr. Langguth said.

Mrs. Merkel has embarked on her own particular policy toward Israel, pursuing a special relationship even after the Gaza bombings. Against the advice of German diplomats, Mrs. Merkel, who is also leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, which is a staunch defender of Israel, referred to Israel as a “Jewish state” in the government’s coalition agreement with the Free Democrats last October. Israelis were delighted. “It is our policy that other states recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” said Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.

No wonder then that the meeting Monday in Berlin was significant. It was the first time the German and Israeli cabinets ever met jointly in Germany. Mrs. Merkel initiated these special consultations, reserved only for a few countries, including France, Poland and Russia, after her 2008 visit to Israel, where she was given the rare honor of addressing the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.

Muriel Asseburg, a Middle East expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, said Mrs. Merkel’s policy toward Israel was linked to the fact that she was raised in Communist East Germany.

“It has much to do with the former East Germany. It did not recognize Israel and did not assume responsibility for the Third Reich, the Second World War and the Holocaust. Merkel has tried to distance herself from that stance and to compensate for that East German past,” Ms. Asseburg said.

So while Mrs. Merkel does say, as she said on Monday, that it is time for Israel and the Palestinians to become re-engaged in a peace process, Ms. Assenburg says Mrs. Merkel “would not publicly take a critical stance of Israel’s policies and the occupation.” Her goal is not to make the peace process a priority in Germany’s relations with Israel. It is to have ever closer relations with Israel, regardless of the conflict.

This runs against the official German position of unequivocal support for the peace process and a two-state solution so as to realize both Israel’s security and Palestinian aspirations. But analysts say that policy is not pursued. “A critical stance with regard to the occupation and settlement policies as well as active German engagement in the peace process should actually follow from Germany’s historical responsibility and not fall under the taboo of the Holocaust,” Ms. Asseburg argued.

It will not happen under Mrs. Merkel. It means that Israel, much criticized by some other E.U. countries, will always have a special ally in Europe, and Europe, for the foreseeable future, will remain unable to wield influence in helping end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

January 20, 2010

The Daily Star

The first anniversary of Barack Obama’s presidency is a good time to review his performance in the Middle East, and the Middle East’s performance vis-à-vis the United States. The exercise is depressing, but useful, especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict that remains the central destabilizing factor in the wider region. It is unfair only to measure Obama’s performance, and ignore the Israeli and Arab principal players in this prolonged drama of stalemate and stagnation.

Obama started his term with a flurry of profound gestures and a few, limited moves. He reached out to and sat at the table with Iran, resumed high-level contacts with Syria, appointed George Mitchell as his peacemaking envoy, called for an Israeli settlement freeze, sought Arab gestures of acceptance of Israel, asked Israel to allow humanitarian supplies to flow into Gaza, spoke out on US-Islamic ties in Ankara and Cairo, and, once a week between January and July, hugged every Muslim in site.

These gestures set the tone for a presidency that held out great promise for new activism, ideas and advances in Arab-Israeli diplomacy. Most of them have fizzled out. Clearly, Obama gave urgency to his Arab-Israeli moves, but did not make them a priority. He focused more on issues of greater immediate importance, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the economy, health care reform and relations with Russia and China. His largely inexperienced team also made some amateurish moves, like equating an Israeli settlement freeze with calls on the Arabs to make gestures of acceptance toward Israel. Washington also appeared not to apply serious diplomatic muscle in the process, beyond public rhetoric.

We still have no idea of how Obama hopes to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular, because he has not articulated the US view on core issues like refugees, the ultimate status of the settlements, and Jerusalem. He has not indicated how far he is prepared to press the Israelis or Arabs. He may not do any of this in the coming year, when mid-term Congressional elections usually freeze any serious work on Israeli matters in the US, for fear that politicians may lose their seats if the pro-Israel lobby decides to oppose and unseat them.

Obama’s Arab-Israeli policy remains an unhurried work in progress, although this week’s Mideast trip by Mitchell, coming soon after that of the national security adviser, Jim Jones, may signal early steps in what might become Phase Two of Obama’s approach to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict through a re-launching of direct negotiations.

In the face of this erratic track record by Obama, what have the Arabs and Israelis done in the past year, other than oppose, delay, irritate and obstruct the US president? If Obama gets a B for effort and a D for achievement, Arabs and Israelis probably deserve an F for their collective failure to contribute meaningfully to resolving their own conflict.

The Israelis not only refused to comply with the American demand to freeze settlements, they also pursued several other destructive, predatory or illegal and provocative actions: they expanded some settlements, house demolitions, building permit approvals and land confiscations in the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights; they continued to steal Arab water above and below ground; they maintained a near-starvation siege on the Gaza Strip and kept killing or jailing Gaza and West Bank Palestinians at will; they continued their over-flights in Lebanon; and, they maintained Apartheid-like controls over Palestinians living in the lands occupied in 1967. All in all, a pretty normal Israeli year.

The Arabs, for their part, have been on diplomatic leave of absence this year, it seems, perhaps still celebrating the Obama victory and anticipating that the young president would save them. I cannot think of a single meaningful or constructive diplomatic move by the Arab world since the Obama election – not on Israel and Palestine, not on terrorism, not on Iran, not on weapons of mass destruction proliferation, not on Iraq, not on Sudan, not on Somalia, not on Yemen, not on Algeria, not on democratization and human rights, and not on Lebanon (well, perhaps we can celebrate that the Syrians and Saudis started talking again).

The total absence of serious Arab diplomacy or initiatives is one of the profound shortcomings of our contemporary Arab political system, in which regimes are largely immobilized on the international scene because of their near total preoccupation with maintaining power at home. It is profoundly sad to see the political passivity of the Arab region and its people – a people that once, long ago, displayed energy, fostered creativity, took initiatives, and engaged the world to make it a better place.

A year after the start of the era of Barack Obama, the Americans still come and go and speak of their dreams for the Middle East, the Israelis still act like criminals, and the Arabs insist on remaining invisible.