'Brains and a 2 by 4' By J. Zel Lurie

President Bush could make peace between Israel and Palestine if, in the next two years, he would devote all his powers and political currency to this problem. So claimed Aaron Miller, one of four panelists, celebrating the 35th anniversary of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam with a discussion of long term prospects for peaceful coexistence.

Aaron Miller devoted 25 years in the State Department working under six secretaries of state and every president from Carter to Bush so he should know whereof he speaks. Unfortunately President Bush is hogtied in Iraq. He should have followed President Clinton's Herculean efforts to bring the parties together at Camp David and Taba in the first two years of his reign, instead of neglecting it until the last two years.

People think that at Camp David, Ehud Barak made a generous proposal and the parties were this close, Miller said cupping his hands together. In reality they were this wide apart, he said stretching his hands out. There was no compromise on Jerusalem, refugees, borders or any other difficult question.

President Clinton had a firm grasp of all the nuances in dealing with Arabs and Jews, Miller said. His problem was that he was not tough enough.

At Camp David, we put a paper on the table, Miller explained without going into details. Someone objected and we took it off the table and presented another paper. We did that 29 times, he said with some passion emphasizing 29 times. He probably remembered his sleepless nights when he was writing a new proposal only to see it rejected the next day.

Nineteen times corrected Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis, who was also at Camp David. He moderated the panel.

Seated next to Miller was Khalil Jahshan, past president of the National Association of Arab Americans. He summed up the discussion succinctly: "To make peace, you need brains and you must carry a two-by-four."

The two other panelists were Dr. Shibley Telhami, the Sadat Professor for Peace at the University of Maryland, and Robert Satloff, Director of the Washington Institute. Both lauded the schools at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, the School for Peace and the bilingual/ bicultural primary school for Jewish and Arab children. The children will lead the way to peace, they said.

Postscript to Tony Klug's essay

Dr. Klug shared with me a bar mitzvah sermon he made several months ago, which I will include later in this posting. I responded with an objection to the following paragraph:

On their part, the Palestinians likewise did not set out to damage anyone. They merely wanted for themselves what – with considerable justification – they felt was their entitlement. While their Arab brethren were achieving independence in neighbouring countries, the Palestinians were paying a heavy price for losing out in the geo-political lottery, and still are. Dispossessed, degraded and derided, their original felony was simply to be in the way of another anguished people's grand enterprise. Almost everything that has happened since then is in some way a consequence of this.

My analysis:

While the Palestinians' intent was natural enough, it was also morally compromised. They were insisting on the closure of Palestine to Jewish immigration at exactly the time that European Jewry was in mortal peril. This nativist and callous reaction made it impossible for them to conceive of approaching the Yishuv with a program for sharing the land -- something that turned out (in retrospect) to be their only hope to avert disaster. Instead, they soiled themselves morally in their repeated turn to anti-Jewish violence, especially in 1947-48 in totally rejecting the UN partition plan and attempting to destroy the Yishuv wholesale.

And, of course, it was the Jewish reaction to a war that the Arabs started which caused their Nakba.

Tony Klug's response:

Ralph, ... I dare say if you take a careful look in the mirror you'll see your Palestinian reflection on the other side. We're all burdened by the history we identify with and often find it difficult to see over its edge. Even when we genuinely believe we are engaging in objective analysis, it sometimes is little more than a cover (albeit unconscious) for partisan advocacy or at least a coloured perception (even when there is some truth in the selected evidence). I have received the precise mirror-image criticism of this piece from Palestinians. They have no quarrrel with what I write about them and their history and the way they view it - but I have, allegedly, succumbed to the Zionist propaganda on the other side. I understand these criticisms and where they're coming from. But I sometimes feel it would be better if the critics engaged a little more in self-reflection and opened up their minds to seeing things in a different way. In fact, that was the whole point of the 'sermon'.

Although cordial, Klug communicated an edge of annoyance, stating that he "neither expects nor desires a reply." But I felt that I didn't want to leave it there, so I responded further:

Don't worry Tony, I'm not arguing with you. [But] I AM an advocate. I understand exactly what you're saying and respect it. I also disagree with you.

I'd like to convince Palestinians (as well as Jews) to confront their history and their flaws, but I suppose that Israelis and Palestinians are mostly going to have to agree to disagree. The trick is to lay aside the emotionality of these disagreements so that they no longer obstruct peace.

Most of Klug's sermon at a London synagogue follows:

... In a modest attempt to do something to make a difference, a small number of Jews and Palestinians living in Britain met in London roughly 20 years ago to try to bridge the hostile gulf that had divided the two communities for decades. Such an idea was considered quite radical at the time, even subversive, and some of those involved feared for their reputations within their own communities, on both sides. So it was agreed that the meetings would start off confidentially, and so it continued for the first six years.

In an effort to calm the initial tension, the kind Quaker facilitators generously handed around a plate of refreshments, only to feel slightly put out when no one touched the ham sandwiches. As we have heard, this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shemini, explicitly prohibits the consumption of certain foods, notably pig meat. But so too does the Muslim Quran, in four separate verses. All of a sudden, these putative enemies, ensconced in one room, found they had something in common. One revealing discovery led to another and excited further curiosity. In this way, the well-meaning Christian hosts innocently achieved their aim of relaxing the atmosphere in a manner they could never have planned or anticipated.

The group’s monthly meetings were not academic seminars between dispassionate analysts searching for supposedly objective truths, but were more of the fiery encounter type between activists who felt personally involved in the enduring conflict between Arab and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian.

We found we all had a great deal to say. The more difficult part was the listening. That took a little longer. And it’s probably fair to say we never really became truly expert at it. But most participants were genuinely keen to acquire an understanding of the others' fears and hopes, their perceptions and aspirations.

We soon discovered that engaging seriously in dialogue can be a profoundly discomfiting experience, especially at first, in that it requires participants to reconsider deeply held convictions, about both themselves and their adversaries. But it is also a deeply humanizing process. It is, after all, easier to despise, humiliate and destroy an imagined stereotype than a fellow human being with feelings, frailties and hopes not so different from one's own.

The main achievement, I would say, was the common recognition that there are not one but two historical perspectives and that it was vital to understand them both - even if one’s own was inevitably the more valid! We came to appreciate that the case for one side was not the antithesis of the case for the other; that a severe setback for one side was not necessarily a powerful gain for the other; and that rejoicing at each other's grief was not just loathsome but ultimately leads nowhere.

As someone who has been involved in different ways with this conflict for the past 40-or-so turbulent years, I have come to appreciate the simple insight of an old adage, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that goes something like this: “If you were born where they were born and you were taught what they were taught, you’d believe what they believe”. Yet, if we are to be more than just the mechanical products of our own backgrounds - and if we want to make proper sense of the conflict - we need to be able to think and understand beyond our boxes.

I would like to share with you two other broad conclusions:

First, it is a self-evident truth that the two peoples are fated to live alongside each other. Neither is going away. If the Palestinians fail to gain their place in the sun, the Israelis will never be left in peace to enjoy theirs. Conversely, the Palestinians will never win their freedom if the Israelis are convinced it will be at their expense. Each holds the key to the other’s destiny. Thus, for its own sake and – of equal importance - for the sake of future generations, it is vital that the vilification by and of either people is brought swiftly to an end. This, I believe, is something we can and should all be vigilant about.

Secondly, the indefinite continuation of this tragic conflict is not inevitable. The animosity between these two small, long-suffering peoples has little to do with their respective religious beliefs or cultural traditions, which have much in common. Israelis and Palestinians have clashed – bitterly – because they have simultaneously aspired to the same piece of territory on which to exercise their self-determination. This is the root of the conflict. Everything else has been artificially superimposed. If the geographical circumstances had been different, it would not be so hard to imagine their relationship as more of one of alliance and mutual support. And maybe it could still be.

On the one side, all sorts of conspiracy theories and malevolent intent have been heaped onto the Zionist movement by its detractors, some of it giving off a familiar antisemitic whiff, not so different from that which played the decisive role in winning so many Jews to the Zionist cause in the first place. Conceptually, Zionism was a distressed people’s proud, if defiant, response to centuries of contempt, humiliation, discrimination and periodic bouts of murderous oppression, of which the Nazi holocaust was the most recent and extreme. The Israeli state was the would-be phoenix to rise from the Jewish embers still smouldering in the blood-soaked earth of another continent.

The motive was the positive one of achieving justice and safety for one tormented people, not the negative one of doing damage to another people. Yet, in effect, this is precisely what it did do, and at some point Israelis and their supporters around the world are going to have to come fully and openly to terms with this.

On their part, the Palestinians likewise did not set out to damage anyone. They merely wanted for themselves what – with considerable justification - they felt was their entitlement. While their Arab brethren were achieving independence in neighbouring countries, the Palestinians were paying a heavy price for losing out in the geo-political lottery, and still are. Dispossessed, degraded and derided, their original felony was simply to be in the way of another anguished people’s grand enterprise. Almost everything that has happened since then is in some way a consequence of this.

In sum, it is common for people directly involved in a conflict to feel passionately about their own cause and to see little or no justice on the side of the other. The challenge for the rest of us is do we merely line up with the side with which we instinctively feel an affinity, and ritualistically echo their mantras, or is there something more useful we can do? If we are to avoid the nightmare of perpetual, tribal-based, conflict, I suggest there is an important role to play across the communities in fostering understanding and helping both sides deal with the realities of today in a manner that is conducive to a peaceful and fair solution that accommodates the reasonable aspirations of both peoples....


Dr. Tony Klug is a veteran Middle East analyst and writer. He was co-founder and co-chair of the Council for Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue, trustee of the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East and has served as head of international development at Amnesty International. Currently, he is Senior Policy Consultant at the Middle East Policy Initiative Forum, vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum and is a founder member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights.

Robert Rosenberg, 1952-2006

When his daily news summaries suddenly stopped a few weeks ago, I knew that something was up. I had come to rely upon Robert Rosenberg's amazing facility for summing up each day's important events in Israel's political scene, and for doing so every working day. I was happy to occasionally post – in whole or in part – his "Today's Situation" column. The last one I used was on August 18. The honors have been pouring in on this remarkable life, cut short from cancer at 54. – Ralph Seliger

From Eric Lee, a one-time American oleh and a friend of Meretz USA:

Back in 1996, I began writing a weekly blog (before there were such things...) called BibiWATCH. That was how I met Robert Rosenberg.

Robert had created one of the first websites devoted to peace in the Middle East – Ariga http://ariga.com/ – a year earlier, in 1995. He was a big fan of what I was doing to Netanyahu week after week, and the admiration was mutual....

Later, Robert would host BibiWATCH on [his] Ariga site – for free.

We got together, sipped espresso in an outdoor cafe in his beloved Tel-Aviv, spent a weekend shmoozing at my kibbutz Ein Dor, and stayed in touch pretty regularly until I moved to London in 1998....

Robert was a character. A former crime writer, he went on to write a number of crime novels based in Israel....

And from Ami Isseroff, who is engaged in a similar effort to Robert's:

.... In addition to his illustrious career as a journalist, Robert blazed the way for Israeli peace activism on the web with Ariga for peace,(http://www.ariga.com/peace). He was generous enough to host Web pages of other people and organizations, include that the PEACE group which preceded MidEastWeb (see PeaceWatch). Robert was a founding member of MidEastWeb for Coexistence, and Ariga was the major inspiration for MidEastWeb.

Almost to the end, Robert edited a daily news summary that reflected his genius at singling out the important events of the day, as well as his unique view of the Middle East.

In Haaretz, David Landau, currently editor in Chief of Haaretz and formerly editor of the Haaretz English edition wrote:

Many, many were the nights when without Robert this paper would not have come out. Or at any rate, that is how it most certainly seemed to us, his colleagues at Haaretz English Edition, as we squeaked past another after-midnight deadline with reams and reams of raw Haaretz copy all somehow translated, edited, page-set and sent to press.

His output was truly phenomenal. His capacity vast; his knowledge encyclopedic. Uncomplaining, with breathtaking speed, with unfailing good grace, he would wade through troughs of dense prose, written to fill whole pages of Hebrew newsprint, and emerge with a succinct, coherent story often capped with a cute or sardonic headline for good measure.

The man was a joy to have around. He was a relief to have around - because you knew that with him the inevitable nightly crises would somehow be resolved. He was often a headache to have around, because, while doing his speed-reading, speed-writing, speed headline-composing and speed-laying-out he would be treating all those within earshot to a cheery, incessant, unquenchable patter of opinion. Sometimes it was about the story in hand. But often it would be about something completely different – which made his expeditious progress on the text all the more amazing. He liked to have the television blaring in the background, too - usually about still another subject. Robert, who was a decade ahead of his time on the Internet, was the consummate multitasker before the rest of us had heard of the concept....

But above all, and at this moment of hesed shel emet when only the truth should be written, it is Robert Rosenberg's good-heartedness that deserves words of praise and admiration. For more than 30 years I would hear him criticizing the whole world. But I never heard him say a bad word to anyone....

Robert's pioneering work in Ariga were generally studiously and deliberately ignored by Israeli media and "big time" peace organizations, even by some whom he had helped along the way. His death is a great loss to the cause of peace, to Israel and to the Middle East, as well as a personal loss for me.

Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Stein on Lieberman: Don't believe the hype

Alex Stein, our oleh khadash (new immigrant) blogger in Israel is not in a panic on the pending elevation of the rightist politician (Avigdor, not Joe) Lieberman to the current governing coalition:

Avigdor Lieberman’s entry into the coalition demonstrates what has become depressingly clear since the end of the summer spat with Hizbollah – that Ehud Olmert is concerned only with maintaining power. Sensationalism on the right and the left – both of which are happy to distort rhetoric before confusing it with reality – does not disguise this. The courtship of Yisrael Beitenu means that Olmert has an almost unheard of coalition – 78 strong. But there are no signs that the political stasis that has struck us down is going to radically change – either for the better or the worst.

Much has been made of Lieberman’s rhetoric towards the Palestinians – of both the Israeli and Occupied Territories variety. Indeed, some have triumphantly asked if Israel would object to other countries aping its response – withdrawal of its ambassador - to the entry of Jorg Haider into the Austrian government in 2000. This is because Lieberman is understood as supporting the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

In reality, Lieberman’s stated plans are a bit more technical. North of the Green Line sits the meshulash [triangle] region, which is principally populated by Israeli-Palestinians. Lieberman wants to unilaterally ‘give’ this region to the stunted Palestinian state that he would establish, in exchange for annexing the major settlement blocs. This plan is obviously illegal, immoral and anti-democratic, although perhaps not worthy of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ tag. But there is absolutely no chance of them being implemented, and in his heart of hearts he must know that.

Lieberman’s plans to ‘cantonise’ the Palestinians into four sectors, with Israel controlling movement in between, have been similarly hyped. But they also don’t represent such a radical departure from Olmert’s annexation plan, which continues apace – despite pretences to the contrary. The difference is solely one of presentation. Olmert pretends that his ideas will lead to a fair and viable Palestinian state; Lieberman is open about his ideal of imprisoning them.

What of domestic issues? Lieberman wants to transform the Israeli polity from a parliamentary to a presidential system. This has passed the first hurdle – a vote in the cabinet. But it still seems unlikely that the plan will succeed, especially in the current circumstances. Rhetoric about ‘stability’ notwithstanding, most figures in the Israeli establishment see Lieberman’s manoeuvres for what they are – an attempt to Putinise the Israeli political system. And how would it square with Olmert’s new goal of finally creating an Israeli constitution?

It’s true that Lieberman and Olmert are good friends, and it’s true that Lieberman will now be closer to power than ever before. The positive side to this, of course, is the marginalisation of Binyamin Netanyahu, who only two months ago was being hailed by some as Israel’s next Prime Minister. It also provides yet another reminder of the desperate need for some kind of alternative. In this regard, Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit’s tentative attempts to place himself as an opposing force to Olmert, under the manifesto of negotiating on the basis of the Arab League initiative, should be viewed in a positive light. So should Labour leader Amir Peretz’s idea of another merger with Meretz-Yachad. But until someone has the courage to build a political bloc on this basis, the stasis of Israel’s dullest and most visionless government yet will continue. And not even Avigdor Lieberman as ‘Minister for Strategic Affairs’ will change that.

Achieving a Middle East Breakthrough

This piece by Jerome M. Segal of the University of Maryland is brought to our attention by Gershon Baskin of IPCRI, the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information.

In a recent interview in the Washington Post, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made this remarkable comment about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “Let the Palestinian people decide their fate in a free and fair referendum, and the result, whatever it is, should be accepted.”

This Iranian suggestion of a Palestinian referendum dovetails with the position of Hamas, that the PLO, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, should negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people, but that any negotiated treaty must be subject to ratification by a referendum of all Palestinians, including those in the diapora.

This emphasis of the use of a Palestinian referendum as the key to ending the Israeli- Palestinian conflict should not be dismissed as some public relations ploy. It speaks to several important Palestinian realities. One is that the PLO, to which Hamas does not belong, is not fully representative of the Palestinian people. A second is the belief that fundamental compromises on the Palestinian “right of return” will require direct expression by the people themselves.

There is also a political reality. Whatever his internal machinations, Ahmadinejad knows that the steam would go out of his ability to use the Palestinian cause for his own ends, were the Palestinian people to endorse a peace agreement. And similarly, the Hamas leadership knows that its own political legitimacy would require that it accept any peace treaty ratified by a referendum.

In both cases, this political reality has been turned to advantage. Without making any compromises in advance on issues of substance, Iran and Hamas have been able to point towards a process that opens the door to negotiations and could lead to resolving the conflict. Thus, both Achmadinejad and Haniya have been able to take stances of moderation without appearing to shift on issues of principle. The challenge for the rest of us is to find a way to use this opportunity in the cause of genuine peace.

The most straight-forward approach is to give PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas what he has been asking for, a renewal of the Israeli-PLO final status talks that were last held in January of 2001, and broken off when Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister. This approach would sharply segregate peace negotiations from the issue of aid to the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority. The aid issue would remain unchanged, and dependent on whether the government of the Palestinian Authority accepts the principles of non-violence, acceptance of previous agreements and recognition of Israel’s right to exist, laid down by the Quartet. Israel would not be negotiating with the Palestinian Authority government, but with the PLO, as did Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak, when Arafat was head of the PLO.

Polls of both Israelis and Palestinians suggest that an agreement acceptable to both peoples can be found. Yet were Israeli-PLO final status talks to resume, it is unclear whether either leadership would make the hard compromises needed to reach an agreement. Knowing this, the Bush Administration has, understandably, been reluctant to repeat President Clinton’s experience at Camp David in the summer of 2000.

An alternative approach, one that utilizes the referendum idea offers a way forward. Rather than traditional bilateral negotiations, the process would open with the Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia) putting on the table a fully drafted end-of-conflict peace treaty based on the Clinton Parameters. These parameters were accepted by Israel at the time, and are now also accepted by the PLO. Starting with the draft peace agreement, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would be given six months to negotiate any improvements. Then, either in its original or improved form, Israel and the PLO would have to approve or reject the agreement.

Each party would utilize its own procedures. On the Israeli side this would mean a Cabinet decision on whether to bring the treaty to a vote in the Knesset. On the Palestinian side, if the PLO accepts the treaty document it would be submitted for ratification by a referendum of the Palestianian people. This approach would provide the Palestinian people with a moment of truth, an opportunity, in Ahmadinejad’s words, ‘to decide their fate.“

Prior to negotiations, the Palestinians would need to enact specific procedures for calling and conducting a referendum. In addition there would have to be clarity that a treaty approved in a referendum is the law of the land, binding on all successor governments. Such steps are quite doable and would not take long to enact.

The key is to focus on bringing a balanced end-of-conflict agreement to a decisive vote of the Palestinian people. Success here would open the door for full normalization of Israel’s relations with the Arab world, and possibly Iran. It is simply too important to not be tested.

Jerome M. Segal heads the Peace Consultancy Project at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies. He is the co-author of Negotiating Jerusalem (SUNY, 2000).

Anti-Israel Bias at ‘The Nation’

This is a new and improved version of what was posted Sunday at the 'Engage' online Forum:

It is not my contention that The Nation, the premier magazine of left-liberalism in the United States, is an antisemitic institution or that it is knowingly spreading antisemitism. Its publisher, Victor Navasky, does not hide his Jewish identity, and many of its staffers and regular contributors are Jews. I also don’t believe that it is anti-Israel in principle, but I do see a clear and consistent anti-Israel bias.

This bias unfairly simplifies the vexing and complex issues of the ongoing conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. The Nation’s one-sided coverage promotes dangerous assumptions among its readers, and goes beyond its readership to reinforce prejudices against Jews and Israel that potentially places an historically persecuted people, and its very small homeland, at risk.

Nearly two years ago, two representatives of Meretz USA (Charney Bromberg and myself) accompanied Yael Dayan to address interns and staff at The Nation’s headquarters in New York. The writer-politician daughter of the iconic Moshe Dayan, a veteran dovish Labor Member of the Knesset and currently deputy mayor of Tel Aviv (elected on the left-Zionist Meretz party ticket) was received warmly at a meeting chaired by The Nation’s editor for Middle East issues, Roane Carey. An antisemitic or inherently anti-Israel environment would not have been so respectful. Yet the fact that Dayan is an outspoken dove and stands for progressive social policies as well, made it easy for this audience to warm toward her.

Still, The Nation's drumbeat of negativity on Israel seems to indicate that Roane Carey has a prejudice (in the literal sense of "pre-judging"). Take the edition dated October 30, 2006. It has two articles relating to Israel. Roane Carey's review of Sandy Tolan's “The Lemon Tree” (“My Friend, The Enemy”) was not terrible, but it would have benefitted from historical contextualization. Having seen the author speak on C-Span 2, the book probably needs it as well. That is, the dispossession of Palestinian Arabs needs to be understood as a reaction to the very serious Palestinian effort to destroy the Yishuv in 1947-48. At least Carey’s piece was not gratuitously mean or inaccurate.

The "Comment" piece by Arno Mayer, "Israel's Cassandra," was another matter. He needed contextualization big time. Mayer builds up the humanitarian preachments of Martin Buber – supplemented with the visionary warnings of Judah Magnes, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and the left-socialist binationalism of Hashomer Hatzair. The extent to which they were all dissenters from mainstream Zionism is far from clear. For example, I've seen at least one published piece by Einstein in which he counters (in rather conventional terms) anti-Zionist arguments.

Mayer's major flaw is that he contrasts the most progressive elements of Zionist thought with ..., well, nothing on the Palestinian-Arab side. Apparently, the Palestinians are a victimized cipher in Mayer's view. He includes nothing about their political leadership. True, it was not nearly as well organized as that of the Jews in Palestine, but it existed. And their top political leader was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who became an active ally of Hitler.

He doesn't even mention their most reasonable and progressive element, forerunners of the Communist parties of Palestine, Israel and Jordan. Hashomer Hatzair had some difficult discussions with this group; the fact that even they could not agree upon an effective common program, despite their closeness in world view, underscores how difficult – virtually impossible – it was, to achieve a peaceful and humane solution.

Mayer's a talented polemical writer, but he’s also shockingly callous in writing disdainfully of "a self-righteousness nourished by the Holocaust [by] Israel's governors and, by and large, its Jewish citizenry...." He heaps blame on Israel and the "Zionist project" for diverse events throughout their history. Was it Israel's "political-military caste" that "began, precipitated, or all but invited five cross-border wars"? (One can make such a case with regard to the 1956 Sinai campaign and the Lebanon invasion of 1982, but as a general satement it’s grossly unfair reductionism.) Is it "irresponsibly said by Tel Aviv" that Hamas and Hezbollah are “inspired and masterminded by Tehran and Damascus"? Clearly, Hezbollah is inspired if not masterminded by Tehran and it is supplied via Damascus, where the latter also houses and encourages the most uncompromising and violent tendencies within Hamas.

With Mayer and other such contributors on Israel over the years, The Nation is cultivating an unmistakable and simplistic sense among its readers that Israel is “bad” or always in the wrong. Mayer is probably not the worst in this. There is a notorious incident of an article by the blue-blood lefty curmudgeon, Gore Vidal, that many readers regarded as antisemitic. There are also vitriolic articles by the consistent Israel-bashing commentator Alexander Cockburn. There are probably numerous other examples that a devoted reader of The Nation (which I am not) could readily recall.

What The Nation generally fails to do is to relate the moral complexities of a conflict that pits a small state associated with an historically persecuted people against another small, grievously suffering people, struggling but not yet succeeding in finding an effective, peace-oriented national leadership. A reasonable end to this conflict is possible, but not obvious. Liberal analyses that do not polemicize are very much in order.

Klug: Antisemitism or war? Part 3

This entry marks the conclusion of Dr. Tony Klug's essay. The crux of his argument (which I've bolded) is that Arab antisemitism is not indigenous, but a product of the conflict with Israel and may abate if the conflict is resolved soon. His distressing suggestion is that Jewish communities may need to dissociate themselves from such policies of Israel that are noxious, in order to be safeguarded from antisemitic attack. This defies the conventional wisdom on antisemites, that they will hate Jews regardless of what Jews do. His implication is that this is not really antisemitism, but rather "anti-Israelism" (to coin a term) and he warns that this anti-Israelism may morph over time into genuine antisemitism.

In my opinion, there is a large component of anti-Israelism in the Arab and Islamic worlds that could essentially disappear with a peaceful solution to the conflict. But if Arab and Muslim communities throughout the world cannot distinguish between random Jews they may subject to mob violence and villification, and the policies of a sovereign government, they may be beyond reasonable persuasion. Besides – although Ehud Barak and Israel were not beyond reproach at Camp David in 2000 – Yasir Arafat's tragic decision to return to violent tactics, along with the Palestinians' electoral choice of Hamas in 2006 and their insane ongoing (although mostly impotent) attacks on Israel, even in the face of last year's disengagement, indicate that Israel faces a people who don't yet know how to make peace. From where I sit, there's plenty of blame to go around. – R. Seliger

Perhaps the most outstanding example of the fulsome introduction of classic anti-Jewish notions into Palestinian politics – and at once an indication of the relative shallowness of its impact – is the Hamas Covenant. Here is an extract from Article 22:

With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

Although the token term ‘Zionist interests’ is casually thrown into this extraordinary rant, the historical events alluded to, from the French Revolution onward, leave no doubt that the object of this calumny is the Jews in general rather than the Zionists in particular. However, the very crudeness of the propaganda illustrates its imported, undigested, unmediated quality. It is as if, with minor adaptations, it had been transplanted wholesale from the notorious Tsarist-era forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," or from a Nazi song-sheet, direct into the heart of the Hamas Covenant without having passed through the minds of the mass of the organization’s Palestinian supporters. According to one informed commentator, the covenant “was written by one individual without broad consultation.” This is not in any way to minimize its appallingly racist content, but rather to contrast the import of archetypal foreign antisemitism with the authentically indigenous sentiments of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism, all of which arose from the historical experiences of the native Arab populations themselves.

These are important distinctions for – to the extent that Arab antisemitism is a by-product of a contemporary political conflict – it may start to dissolve as a natural consequence of the settlement of the wider problem. But time is of the essence. The longer the broader conflict continues, the deeper will be its poisonous legacy. There may unhappily come a time when antisemitism per se will indeed take root throughout the region. In that event, it would not only outlive the putative end of the Arab-Israeli conflict but enormously complicate its resolution in the first place.

These are matters of serious concern not just for Israelis and their government. They could affect the standing and safety of Jews everywhere. If only for their own protection, Jewish communities around the world have a strong interest in distancing themselves from Israel’s repressive practices and annexationist tendencies. Beyond this, they are sometimes in a position to influence Israeli policies and – in concert with other concerned groups – to help bridge the gaps between the antagonistic parties. To engage in such initiatives would entail jettisoning their more common instinct of unquestioningly following the Israeli government`s cue, whatever it may be.

It is not as if Israel’s governments have such an unimpeachable track record. Former Prime Minister Sharon’s withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza was lauded within Israel and internationally as a great achievement, as if he had not been principally responsible for implanting them there in the first place in defiance of expert warnings and at huge wasted expense. And for years, many commentators warned that if Israeli leaders declined to deal constructively with the Fatah/PLO leadership, they would end up with Hamas. So this really should not have come as a surprise either. Now, if they fail to deal with Hamas, they could end up with the far more perilous Al Qaida. Meanwhile, growing chaos and deepening distress are stalking the Palestinian territories. With a little more humility and self-reflection and a little less hubris and self-deception, the current predicament may have been avoided.

The election of Hamas in January’s Palestinian parliamentary elections is a watershed. Whatever else may be said of it, it exposes the fallacies of official Israeli concepts and represents a resounding defeat for Israeli policies and strategy. Yet, the reflex reaction of the Israeli government, supported by several allied governments, is to boycott and isolate a Hamas-led government and demand that it abandon all of its principal positions overnight and replace them with the policies of the party it had just trounced in the polls. [A plurality of 44% to 42% does not a trouncing make, but Klug has a point – ed.] Just to spell this out is enough to see how ridiculous and unrealistic this stance is. The new situation provides fertile ground for mature, visionary – and greatly needed - leadership on the part of leaders of overseas Jewish communities.

What is required at this point is an independent approach to the very people that the Israeli government currently views as its foes. Israel is a state and, like other states, its geopolitical circumstances sometimes throw up enemies and sometimes allies. These are not fixed positions. Israel today has durable peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, countries with which it used to be at war. On the other hand, Iran was once Israel’s chief ally in the region, and may again be so in the future. For years, the PLO called for Israel’s destruction and Israelis were barred from having any contact with its members. Then, all of a sudden, it became Israel’s peace partner. An enemy today is not necessarily an enemy tomorrow, and an enemy of Israel is not necessarily an enemy of the Jewish people. It does not follow that because the Israeli state chooses to shun certain parties, or vice versa, that Jewish communities elsewhere should automatically fall in line. On the contrary, reaching out and engaging with such parties and their followers at times of flux may be precisely what would be of most benefit. It is, of course, a two-way street, but there is nothing to lose by making the attempt and maybe such encounters would engender some positive waves. Now that would be a tsunami worth going for.

Dr. Tony Klug is senior policy consultant at the UK-based Middle East Policy Initiative Forum, vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum and a co-founder of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights. He has been writing on the Middle East for over 30 years.

Klug: Is it antisemitism...? Part 2

I include a few editorial comments in brackets, as indicated below, with this continuation of Tony Klug’s article.

The point I was intending to bring out in the quoted passage [by Bernard Lewis] was, in sum, that if any country in the world behaves – as a matter of policy – towards a captive people in a way that persistently defies international human rights norms and denies it freedom, and that a visible international constituency appears consistently to defend that behaviour, that constituency is likely increasingly to attract the animosity of a broad coalition. This is only to be expected . The animosity may have nothing to do with the ethnic, religious or other affiliation of the constituency (thus in this case it need not have an ‘antisemitic’ motivation) but it might have everything to do with the posture the constituency publicly adopts and with the unpopular cause it vigorously promotes. To pose the question in direct terms: are Jewish communities around the world entirely blameless bystanders or hapless victims or is there anything they could have done or still could do to reduce the animosity?

By way of illustration, consider the following hypothetical case. Imagine that, in the context of a fierce, long-standing dispute, the state of Armenia captured and occupied a chunk of neighbouring Turkish territory, built Armenian-only settlements and highways, allowed militant settlers to intimidate local inhabitants, imposed curfews and closures, erected myriad checkpoints, roadblocks and forbidding barriers, demolished Turkish homes, imprisoned a large segment of Turkish youth and periodically bombarded Turkish-inhabited towns. [Something like this is exactly what Armenia has done in Nagorno-karabakh, part of the sovereign territory of neighboring Azerbaijan – ed.]

Instead of dissociating themselves from such conduct, imagine that organized diaspora Armenian communities in countries around the world - still haunted by memories of past massacres of their kinfolk - elected to defend and justify it in a show of solidarity (while displaying little tolerance for the growing band of so-called dissenters – or ‘self-hating Armenians’ - within their ranks). [This is unfair: the attackers don’t ask their victims if they are “Zionists” or if they might be dovish dissenters; that they are Jews is “guilt” enough – ed.]

In these circumstances, would it be surprising if a certain anti-Armenian sentiment developed in a spread of countries, not only among those who felt a natural affinity with people of Turkish or Muslim origin but also among others committed to democratic principles, human rights and international law? Yet Armenian communities, feeling besieged, isolated and misunderstood, might well put the animosity down to a historical Muslim antipathy towards Christians and a latent anti-Armenianism on the part of not just the Turkish people but much of the rest of the world too (which is not to say there might not be some validity to this in this or a comparable case).

On their part, the Turks and their supporters may investigate their own or Armenian scriptures to see if they could uncover historical explanations for what may seem to them like the cruel and treacherous nature of their oppressors. In this - hypothetical case – the search would possibly lead nowhere. However, an equivalent investigation targeted at Jews in the case of the very non-hypothetical Arab-Israeli conflict would be certain to produce the sought-after results, if only because of the ancestral battles that once took place between the Jewish tribes of Medina and the contemporaneous followers of the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. And indeed, following the principle of ‘seek and ye shall find’, the Muslim and Arab researchers have been able in practice frequently to dig out some of what they were looking for. In the late 1970s, this writer explored the political and psychological processes at work:

That the Jews nevertheless persisted in denying the legitimate claim of the Palestinians required an explanation. How was it that an entire population-set came to support an `unjust` cause? Often, this question seemed to invite the conclusion that the people in question were characteristically malevolent - a fact that was bound to be revealed by an investigation into their history and their religious beliefs. This, then, frequently became the purpose behind such investigations, as the Arab and Muslim worlds devoted ever-larger resources to the task of re-interpreting and often re-writing the history of the Jewish people and the religious tenets of Judaism ...
Ancient sources, including the Koran, were cited to 'prove' many of the contentions of the Muslim religious leaders. Yet, the highlighting of such 'evidence' - plainly having 'been in existence' for centuries - was a recent phenomenon, stemming from the onset of the contemporary conflict. Clearly, it was this that inspired the selective search for such passages that spoke ill of the Jews.

That the search was indeed selective is attested to by other parts of the Koran that preach making friends with the Jews, commonly referred to as the ‘people of the book’. Indeed, in a footnote to the above passage, it was observed that it was precisely these more genial portions that spiritual leaders in Egypt were urged by the authorities to stress to their congregants during the two weeks of the Cairo conference following President Sadat`s peace-seeking visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. This goes to show how need is often the mother of selectivity.

In general, Muslim scriptures are not bountiful source material for Jewish perfidy. It is not just that the messages they give out are not consistent but also that Jews are not an especial preoccupation of Muslim literature or culture. This is where bona fide antisemitic ideas and literature eagerly step in. Imported into the Muslim and Arab worlds where once it was alien, the antisemitic ‘explanation’ is now increasingly embraced by disaffected people with mind-sets primed to be receptive to a simple, it’s-all-the-Jews-fault, answer to many problems. In short, what profoundly distinguishes - and renders especially perilous - the Jewish predicament from the hypothetical Armenian one is that, in the Jewish case, a potent, ready-made, fully formed, deleterious ideology is lurking in the wings, ready to pounce and fill the gaps. Thus, what starts out as a political ‘anti-Jewish sentiment’ may, in given circumstances, metamorphose into a full-blooded antisemitism (of the classical type). The longer the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues, the more such toxic slippage is likely to be in evidence.

While helping to explain the cause of the phenomenon, none of this of course justifies the rise of antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds, or anywhere else. As with all dogma based on supposedly innate traits, it is obnoxious in and of itself. It also poisons the conflict and is intensely dysfunctional to a solution. As an explanation, it is a dangerous impostor: by masquerading as an analysis, it obscures the need for a proper analysis. As a strategy, it is counterproductive: indeed it was the spread of antisemitism that played the decisive role in winning so many Jews to the Zionist cause in the first place. And as a tactic, it is highly divisive: confusing and alienating Jewish sympathizers of the Palestinian cause as well as many others who despise racism of all types. Moreover, stereotyping one party is liable to prompt equally pernicious and ignorant counter-stereotyping of other parties.

The charge of antisemitism against Palestinians and others who champion their cause is often made too readily and too flippantly. It lumps together real antisemites - who are still around aplenty in and out of the woodwork and having an increasingly good time - with genuine defenders of universal human rights and other groups, not least the authentic victims of oppressive Israeli policies and those who feel a natural affinity with them.

Equally, many Arabs, Muslims and their supporters too easily dismiss the accusation of antisemitism as just a device for defending shameful Israeli policies. While this is sometimes true, the accusation is sometimes true too. There is a vital need for both sides to shriek a little less loudly and reflect deeply on their respective roles in enabling the destructive ideology of antisemitism to permeate, aggravate and complicate the conflict. Some leading Palestinian figures have not only acknowledged the infiltration of antisemitism into Arab society but have been outspoken in their rejection of it.
To be continued...

Klug: Is it antisemitism or war?

The following article, “A Tsunami of Confusion - Antisemitism and the Arab-Israeli conflict,” completed in July of this year by Tony Klug, appears abbreviated in Prospect Magazine, August 2006. I am reproducing the first part here, along with my commentary.

I met the British-Jewish writer and social analyst, Tony Klug, along with his brother Brian (similarly engaged intellectually) at a conference of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom nearly two years ago. I don’t know how close I am to him (and them) politically, but I find this article stimulating. In particular, almost alone among analysts, he notes toward the end of this posting that the Oslo years initially brought an ebb of antisemitism within the Arab world, as many Arabs noticed that the government of Yitzhak Rabin was attempting something historically different and very positive during the early years of the Oslo peace process. I noticed this at the very moment that things were beginning to go bad, as a high-level Saudi reacted to the wave of suicide bombings, which eventually catapulted Netanyahu to a narrow electoral victory over Shimon Peres in 1996, with an expression of sympathy for the Israelis.

There were some harsh Jewish reactions, when I dared to write something similar in an op-ed article in The Forward, criticizing the YIVO’s conference on antisemitism in 2003, for referring to the anti-Jewish utterances and violence that erupted in Europe after the beginning of the Intifada as something other than traditional antisemitism. In particular, it seemed obvious to me that if antisemitism is classically thought of as having everything to do with the fantasies of the antisemite rather than anything really to do with the behavior of Jews, then this was NOT antisemitism. What was happening was bad and wrong, but it was a different phenomenon – a set of inappropriate responses to the televised visuals of the suffering being inflicted on the Palestinians by Israel as the latter’s defense against this new round of conflict and terrorism. – R. Seliger

Recent actions by the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon, and the responses to them, have prompted renewed fears of antisemitism among Jewish communities around the globe. Sir Jonathan Sachs, the British chief rabbi, had already warned earlier this year of “a kind of tsunami of antisemitism”. By contrast, his predecessor, Lord Jakobovits, had exclaimed only a few years earlier: “For the first time in over 2,000 years … there is not a single Jewish community anywhere in the world where Jews are officially persecuted because they are Jews.”

In a way, it is not surprising that even such prominent figures within the Jewish world should see the matter so differently. The whole debate in recent years has been marred by contradiction, confusion and more than a little dogmatism. How do we distinguish alarmism from complacency, paranoia from denial, objective analysis from special pleading? In short, how are we supposed to make sense of it all?

There is little doubt that there has been a marked increase in open antipathy towards Jews in a number of countries around the world, most strikingly among Arabs and Muslims. If this trend continues much longer, the mood it reflects could become firmly entrenched within these societies. While deeply worrying, there is no mystery about what has triggered it. Equally, it is not a coincidence that there has been a simultaneous upsurge in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment among Jews. However, the contemporary mutual animosity – with an emphasis on its contemporariness - has relatively little to do with Muslim or Jewish religious beliefs or cultural traditions, which go way back and have much in common, but is primarily a tragic offspring of the territorial clash in the Middle East.

This is not a new or even a particularly controversial idea. Chief Rabbi Sachs himself co-signed a Council of Christians and Jews statement in January 2004 that included this passage: “We share with so many others a deep longing for peace, justice and reconciliation in the Holy Land and we believe that achieving this would help to make it harder for antisemitism to flourish.”

Yet some voices from within these same communities are quick to deny any link between Israeli policies and anti-Jewish feelings. Rather, current enmity towards both Jews and Israel from within the Arab and Muslim worlds - as elsewhere - is explained as a phase in Jew-hatred stretching back centuries. The journalist Melanie Phillips promotes such a theme in her book Londonistan, where she writes: “the fight against Israel is not fundamentally about land. It is about hatred of the Jews” who, she says, are viewed by Islam as “a cosmic evil”. From this, it follows that the way Israel conducts itself is at most a minor factor in the hostility directed towards it.

This is certainly a convenient argument for those who have a political or ideological interest in making it. But the burden of the evidence points in the opposite direction, as exemplified by the Israeli-Palestinian accords of the ‘Oslo years’ in the mid-1990s which changed the whole atmosphere and shot up Israel’s stock in the Arab world and globally to unprecedented heights. In the same period, according to leading Jewish research institutions, “a general lessening of antisemitic pressure was recorded”.

As for the claim of historical ‘Jew-hatred’ in the Islamic world, its validity has been repudiated by no less an authority than the veteran historian Bernard Lewis, a Middle Eastern scholar of impeccable pro-Israel credentials. In a presentation in 1985, he distinguished three kinds of hostility to Jews: opposition to Zionism, `normal` prejudice (what Reverend James Parkes has described as ‘the normal rough and tumble between peoples’), and ‘that special and peculiar hatred of Jews, which has its origins in the role assigned to Jews in certain Christian writings and beliefs...`. Using the term ‘antisemitism’ to refer to the third kind of hostility only, he remarked: `In this specialized sense, antisemitism did not exist in the traditional Islamic world`. Although he held that Jews “were never free from discrimination”, they were, he said, “only occasionally subject to persecution”.

He identified three factors that gave rise to a more recent `European-style anti-Semitism in the Islamic world`: the rise of the European empires, the breakdown and collapse of the old political structures, and Jewish resettlement in Palestine along with the creation of Israel and subsequent Israeli-Arab wars. While arguing that antisemitism played a part from the start of the Mandate period, “the real change began after the Sinai War of 1956 and was accelerated after the Six Day War of 1967”.

What distinguished the 1967 war from previous battles was that it concluded with Israeli military rule over occupied territories that contained over a million Palestinian Arab inhabitants, a number that has more than tripled since then. In a pamphlet published in the mid-1970s - a relatively calm period in the Palestinian territories - this writer addressed the question of what effect a prolonged Israeli occupation over the Palestinian people was likely to have on Arab attitudes towards Jews in general:

While Israel continues to rule over the West Bank, there are bound to be ever more frequent and more intensive acts of resistance by a population that is suffering the consequences of economic difficulties in Israel, that is feeling encroached upon by a spreading pattern of Jewish colonization, and whose yearning for independence is no less than was that of the Palestinian Jews in the early months of 1948. As long as Israel continues to govern that territory, she will have little choice but to retaliate in an increasingly oppressive fashion – just to keep order. The charge of the ‘brutal occupier’ which has been spread by Arab propaganda over the recent years and which (with notable exceptions) has been mostly unfounded will eventually, through force of circumstances, come to resemble the truth. The moral appeal of Israel`s case will consequently suffer (alongside the fading memory of the Nazi holocaust) and this will further erode her level of international support, although probably not amongst organized opinion within the Jewish diaspora. This sharpening polarization is bound to contribute to an upsurge in overt antisemitism, of which there are already ominous indications.

It may be seen, then, that the signals were there many years ago for anyone who cared to notice them. The causes are not difficult to identify and the current manifestations are hardly a great surprise. There is no need for convoluted alternative explanations, even less so when they take the form of self-serving, post facto, rationalizations.

Although, in the quoted passage above, the term 'antisemitism' was employed loosely, the importance of the distinction highlighted by Lewis between the centuries-old European Christian prejudice with its demonic conception of the Jew and the more recent antipathy sparked off by a bitter, contemporary political conflict is compelling. Using the word ‘antisemitism’ to cover antagonism to almost anything Jewish, including Israeli policies, Zionism as an ideology, or even the existence of Israel, and then rationalizing this modern tendency by slapping on the prefix ‘new’ is not just simplistic and muddling but carries a serious risk of debasing the coinage . On the other hand, it is not as straightforward as this, for in certain circumstances the different phenomena may blend into and nourish each other (what Dr. Brian Klug has termed “poisonous intercourse”). I shall return to this matter below.
To be continued....

Rosenberg: Getting Out of the Box

This is M. J. Rosenberg’s IPF Friday column of October 13, 2006 (# 294), from the Israel Policy Forum. We at Meretz USA have had good experiences with the Palestinian-American organization he refers to here.

It becomes clearer every day that Prime Minister Olmert needs to take some dramatic action to reverse Israel’s current predicament.

The Lebanon war is over, for now, but Israeli soldiers remain in Hezbollah’s hands. The tenuous cease-fire is holding but Hezbollah remains an armed force with the ability to hit Israeli cities when it chooses. In Gaza, progress toward a unity government has stalled with no interlocutor apparently able to convince Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept agreements previously negotiated by Israel and the PLO. With Palestinian living conditions deteriorating rapidly, it would not take much to spark a Palestinian civil war and reignite the intifada.

There is, of course, a vocal minority in Israel that prefers that Israel not have a viable Palestinian negotiating partner. These people worry that because successful negotiations inevitably lead to mutual compromise, it is best when the Arab side is represented by its most extreme elements. Then the “no partner” mantra can be employed and everything will stay the same.

But most Israelis and Palestinians do not cherish the staus quo. According to the polls, some 70% of Israelis want to see the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians toward the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. Polling data from the West Bank and Gaza demonstrate similar sentiments.

In fact, on Wednesday I personally witnessed the strength of Palestinian support for the two-state solution at an event I attended in Washington. It was a gala sponsored by the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), an organization based in Washington that works for the two-state solution.

Its founder, Dr. Ziad Asali, a visionary physician from Palestine and, more recently, Illinois, and his savvy executive director, Rafi Dajani, fight strenuously for Palestinian rights, and do so without hostility to Israel. In Washington, they have become the Palestinian counterparts pro-Israel moderates have long been seeking and ATFP has become the first Palestinian group that Jewish organizations can and do work with. ATFP is also, not coincidentally, the first Palestinian group to have achieved significant successes on Capitol Hill and within the administration.

It was an exciting event. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke as did Senators Carl Levin, John Sununu, Ambassador Afif Safiyeh, Head of the PLO Mission to the United States and Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal.

For me, the most striking aspect of the evening was the strong commitment to peace with Israel on the part of the audience which was almost entirely composed of Palestinian-Americans and Palestinians from the region itself. It responded with applause to every reference made by any of the speakers to a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel, and there were dozens of those references.

There was not, as far as I can recall, a single suggestion that peace with Israel is not a goal Palestinians should strive for. Nor was Israel criticized although the occupation of the West Bank most certainly was. But there was no hostility to Israel per se, which is something that I, and other Jews and Israelis in the audience, were alert to. No, this was an audience that wants peace; it is desperate for it.

Unfortunately, at this point, there is apparently little movement on the Israeli-Palestinian front. In her address, Secretary Rice eloquently committed the United States to the establishment of a Palestinian state, alongside a secure Israel, by 2009 but announced no concrete steps. There are, however, rumors that the administration is about to announce a new Israeli-Palestinian initiative, a possibility that seemed plausible considering the passion of Rice’s remarks.

Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal was even more emphatic than Rice about the urgency of achieving an agreement, particularly after the war in Lebanon demonstrated how easily and suddenly violence could erupt.

He said: “In Saudi Arabia, we believe that the path to peace begins with peaceful coexistence between a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, and peace between Israel and the entire Arab world.”

He then re-stated his government’s commitment to the so-called Saudi plan, which was adopted by he Arab League in 2003. “If Israel and the Palestinians can find a peaceful territorial compromise along the lines of UN Resolutions 242 and 338, under which Israel would withdraw from the lands it occupied in the 1967 War, including [East] Jerusalem, and make peace with a Palestinian state, then the Arab world would not only accept Israel’s existence, but have normal relations with it.”

The Saudi plan, as described by the ambassador Wednesday, would not be acceptable to Israel in that form because of the reference to East Jerusalem. But it is close enough to what Israelis would accept that it is worth negotiating over -- as would be any plan that offers Israel peace and normalization of relations with the Arab world.

Besides, the Saudis are not offering their plan as a treaty they simply expect Israel to sign. It is a document, an opening offer, which they would like to see Israel respond to with its own ideas. This back and forth is called negotiations.

Similarly, Gideon Sher, a former Israeli diplomat who played an instrumental role in the Camp David negotiations of 2000, wrote in Yediot Ahronot this week that Israel should seriously explore the signals coming out of Damascus these days.

President Bashar Assad told Der Spiegel last week that he favors a comprehensive peace settlement with Israel in exchange for the Golan Heights. Rather than demand the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, he said they should be permitted to assume citizenship in a West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state. He also said he would not rule out a meeting with Prime Minister Olmert to discuss outstanding issues.

Is he serious? Who knows. One day Assad is a dove and the next the hawk of all hawks.

But Sher says: “A resumption of talks is a far cry from achieving an agreement, but it can provide us with a sense as to what Assad's intentions are. Therefore, Israel must not reject Assad's hints outright but, rather, it must begin a cautious, measured and pragmatic process in which Assad's willingness is analyzed. If it is all merely a ruse, we will know as much very quickly….After all, one can always say, ‘no’."

And that’s the point. There is no way of knowing what the other side will offer until you engage it in negotiations. What’s the worst that can happen? You fail to reach an agreement and you are back where you started. But the best that can happen is something very good indeed.

Those who will read this as naiveté might do well to consider the words of a rather hardheaded political scientist from Stanford who is now Secretary of State.

This is what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the ATFP: “I know that sometimes a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel must seem like a very distant dream. But I know too, as a student of international history, that there are so many things that once seemed impossible that, after they happened, simply seemed inevitable. I've read over the last summer the biographies of America's Founding Fathers. By all rights, America, the United States of America, should never have come into being. We should never have survived our civil war. I should never have grown up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama to become the Secretary of State of the United States of America.

“And yet, time and time again, whether in Europe or in Asia or even in parts of Africa, states that no one thought would come into being, and certainly not peacefully and democratically, did. And then looking back on them, we wonder why did anyone ever doubt that it was possible.”

Those are sentiments Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism would definitely relate to. It is Rice’s way of saying, as Herzl famously did, “if you will it, it is no dream.”

Victims of Israel's 'Wisconsin Plan'

The following is my introduction to a photo essay featured in the pending Fall issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS. In the print edition, photo and biographical portraits are presented of four 'Wisconsin' clients. These portraits are made by a cooperative of activist Israeli photographers called ActiveStills.

August 22nd marked the tenth anniversary of President Clinton's signing into law of the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act," the formal name for welfare reform in the United States. This federal law was modelled after a program enacted in the state of Wisconsin – "Wisconsin Works" (popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan) that required welfare recipients to work in order to reduce welfare rolls. The Wisconsin Plan or Program has been adopted as the name for a similar welfare reform initiative enacted recently in Israel under the social budgetary cuts (usually described as draconian) implemented under the then minister of finance, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In January 2006, the New Israel Fund (NIF) hired Mark H. Greenberg, director of policy at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C. – a non-profit organization engaged in research, analysis, and advocacy on a range of issues affecting low-income families – to examine Israel's adaptation of the Wisconsin Plan on a pilot basis. Mr. Greenberg stated the following in the NIF newsletter: "Over the years the US has implemented some very good welfare reform programs and some very bad ones. I'm afraid that in the Wisconsin Plan, Israel has imported one of the bad ones, which is designed to reduce the number of people receiving government payments rather than genuinely assist them to find work."

In August 2005, steps were taken to implement the Wisconsin Plan in Israel – known as Me-haLev, “From the Heart.” This program involves the privatization of social services, with the ideological aim of eliminating the welfare state.

Rabbi Idit Lev, the Jerusalem-based coordinator for social-economic justice with Rabbis for Human Rights, indicated in a Jerusalem lecture on this subject in June 2006, that child care needs and medical conditions are not given due consideration in the Israeli Wisconsin program. She notes that the private companies that run the pilot centers, including physicians who are not independent of the private contractors, all have a financial incentive to show "success" by denying welfare clients their benefits. So medical conditions are ignored, or defined as less disabling than they are, and people are sanctioned with lost benefits for failing to attend classes or other workfare activities because they must tend to unavoidable child-care needs.

There are also frequent complaints that training classes are useless or inappropriate for clients. Educated people are sent to classes for beginners and people who are illiterates or can't speak Hebrew are sent to courses they can't understand. Unemployed people must either attend classes or be assigned to unpaid "community service" jobs such as street cleaning or other work provided by the municipality – up to nine hours a day without getting more than their welfare allowance, which is below the legal minimum wage.

According to Assaf Adiv, writing in the September-October 2005 issue of Challenge, a publication of Israel's radical left:

'From the Heart' includes 17,000 of the 160,000 who receive income maintenance. The plan will proceed on an experimental basis for two years in four centers: East and West Jerusalem, Nazareth and Nazareth Ilit, Hadera and the villages of Wadi Ara, and [in] Ashkelon. Of the participants, 30 percent will be Arabs and 20 percent new immigrants....

The crux of the program is this: every participating welfare recipient will be required to remain in the Wisconsin center between 30 and 40 hours per week, receiving counseling, training and job referrals. If he does not succeed in finding salaried employment, the counselor may assign him to full-time non-paid work in a community institution such as a hospital or charity. Only by doing this work will he continue to receive a welfare check (NIS 2200 per family, equaling $488 monthly).

Journalist faces death for seeking peace

The great Bangladeshi humanitarian economist, Muhammad Yunus, has been named as this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He does tremendous work as the genius behind the Grameen Bank “microcredit” operation for lifting millions around the world from poverty. I hate to seem to gainsay this in any way, but it would have been momentous if his countryman, journalist Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury, facing a death sentence for treason for working for peace with Israel, had been named instead. (Perhaps Yunus should have been awarded the Nobel in economics.) The following is Ami Isseroff’s latest report on Choudhury’s situation. See the bottom of the page at MidEastWeb site for suggestions on how to help Mr. Choudhury. – R. Seliger

Those who have been with MidEastWeb for a while know the case of Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury only too well. Salah is the Bangladesh journalist who was one of the first to warn about the rise of Islamist radicalism in Bangladesh, explaining how it was carefully incubated in Madrassahs and encouraged by corrupt authorities. The world was surprised when bombs began going off all over Dhakka some time later, but Salah was not surprised at all.

Speaking out against radical Islamism and advocating dialogue and diplomatic relations with Israel are apparently "crimes" punishable by death in Bangladesh. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is on trial for sedition, a capital offence, because of those stands. His trial begins October 12. Believe it or not, the story is even worse than that.

When the US pressed Bangladesh to recognize Israel, Salah supported the move through his newspapers. He established contact with an Israeli dialogue group, IFLAC, and attempted to come to Israel to talk about encouraging dialogue through the media. He was arrested at the airport in November, 2003 as he was about to board a flight for Israel. He began living a Kafkaeseque nightmare that has continued for three years. Salah wrote several letters from jail describing the conditions and his failing health. He was charged with sedition, and with a passport offence for attempted travel to Israel. The Arab world press generated outrageous rumors insisting that Salah was an agent of the Israeli Mossad intelligence organization. Pressure from US officials and the House of Representatives ultimately obtained his release on bail after he had served much longer jail time than the passport offence penalty would have required.

Salah was convinced that the sedition charges would be dropped, but that was not to be. The case has dragged on and on as the government sought to fabricate a case for sedition. The office of his newspaper was recently bombed and Salah was badly beaten by a mob. It seems that getting beaten up and having your office trashed is also against the law in Bangladesh. Salah now faces an addition "trial" for that "offence." This is how it happened, as Salah relates:

I was assaulted by a mob led by BNP's Cultural Wing leader Helal Khan and Babul Ahmed on 5th of October. Weekly Blitz Managing Editor M. A. Ahsan was also seriously injured, which resulted in suspension of the publication of Weekly Blitz for this week.

... Mr. Ahsan and I immediately rushed to the Shahbagh Police Station and met the officer-in-charge, Rezaul Karim, to lodge a complaint against the attackers and ask that they send police forces to our office to guard our properties. However, the police officer, (who reportedly received TK. 200,000 as a bribe from the attackers) reluctantly asked us to go back to homes, take a shower and meet him after several hours...

The attackers took unlawful possession of our office and looted a number of computers, printers and other valuables from the office. Earlier, when they attacked me, Babul Ahmed shouted, "He is an agent of Jews, kill him". They snatched my mobile phone, took TK. 42,000 cash from my pocket and forcibly took away the key of the vault of the office and looted TK 350,000 cash. It may be mentioned here that police protection was mysteriously withdrawn from our office four days before the attack. Meanwhile, more surprisingly, the government has also withdrawn police protection from my residebce, which has definitely put my entire family in to a tremendous horror.

Now, supposedly being given legal protection by the police, we lodged a formal case with the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate on Sunday, 8th of October. The Metropolitan magistrate Mizanur Rahman sent the case to criminal Investigation Department (CID) for investigation and necessary actions. But, the influential people (the attackers) belonging to the ruling party are now trying to press CID to send the matter to cold storage.

Hearing that we lodged the complaint, the attackers, under the direct patronage of the officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station, lodged a false complaint with the police station in the evening of 8th October, where Rezaul Karim (the OC) instructed his fellow officers to issue warrant of arrest against us. On the following day (9th of October) another false complaint was filed by the attackers with the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, which the court sent to Shahbagh Police Station for investigation and action.

The court also accepted the petition of the attackers and instructed the police to raid my office and residence. This incident forced me to go into hiding on the dark hours of 9th October, as I was told by some journalists that the officer in charge was ready to arrest me, assault me in custody and kill me. The officer in charge is continuously conspiring to do everything to 'give me a proper lesson'. The attackers also held a press conference in Dhaka on 10th of October, where attacker Babul Ahmed said, "Shoaib is an agent of Israel and Jews".

I appeared before the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate Mr. Shafiq Anwar on the 11th of October 2006 through my lawyer Advocate Samarendra Nath Goswami for bail. The magistrate in the bail order wrote, "the counsel appearing for the state (that is a police officer) strongly opposed the bail petition. But, the allegation is confusing. So, the bail is granted"....They want to harrass us and want to see the complete death of Weekly Blitz, which is the most outspoken newspaper in Bangladesh.

If we do not find a way to help him, Salah may be convicted of treason and executed, or killed by the mob. In the best case, his life and health would be ruined by a long jail sentence and a slanderous and violent campaign.

Please write or phone elected representatives, Bangladesh government officials and human rights groups. Frankly, letters from Israel to Bangladesh authorities may harm his case.

Letters to Bangladesh authorities should be polite and not abusive and should emphasize the harm that this case is doing to the good image of Bangladesh in your country and the need to pursue justice.

Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission.

MJ Rosenberg: Bush’s Saudi Moment

This is a slightly abridged version of Rosenberg’s IPF Friday column of Oct. 6, #293. He is an associate of the Israel Policy Forum and may be contacted by e-mail at ipfdc@ipforumdc.org

Bob Woodward’s latest book, “State of Denial,” is loaded with new information about the Iraq war – how it began and how it has been conducted. But it also includes some new information about the Bush administration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As is well known, the Bush family is very close to the Saudi ruling family. They are so close that when then Governor George W. Bush was thinking of running for President, his father asked Prince Bandar, then Saudi ambassador to the United States, to come to Texas and essentially conduct a tutorial on Middle East issues for the future President.

As recounted by Woodward, Bandar provided a balanced look at the issues and personalities that constitute the Middle East conflict (including the Israeli leaders he knows). Bandar even told Bush to avoid taking stands that would turn the pro-Israel community against him but rather to do and say whatever was necessary to get elected. That is how much the Saudis wanted Bush to win.

There is no evidence that President Bush is any less close to the Saudis today. Given America’s ever-growing oil dependence, the Iraq war, and the Shiite-Iran surge, the Saudis loom larger than ever. As for the Saudis, they need America more than ever as well.

As Woodward tells the story, the Saudis have repeatedly told Bush that they (like the Jordanians, Egyptians and other moderate Arab regimes) are in a precarious position these days. During the period covered by Woodward, the Palestinian intifada was raging and Arabs worldwide were enraged by the means Israel was using to suppress it. The Saudis, and the others, were under heavy pressure from the Arab street to take a stronger stand against Israel. In Egypt and Jordan, the peace treaties with Israel – so vital to Israel’s security – became increasingly unpopular with the masses who view them as having done nothing for the Arabs while strengthening Israel’s position.

The Saudis, who rarely if ever, admit to any political weakness at home, told Bush that even they were feeling the heat. Bandar begged Bush to do something, anything, to help ease the plight of the Palestinians. Bush responded with his call for establishment of a Palestinian state and a speech outlining his ideas for how to go about establishing it. The Roadmap soon followed.

But then, nothing, or very little, happened, leaving the Saudis pretty much where they were at the beginning. The precarious position of the Arab moderates has only become more so in recent months. The reason is that radical Shiism is on the march.

Iraq, previously a state dominated by the Sunni minority, is now dominated by Shiites. The Iraq war reduced the previous antagonism between Shiite Iran and Sunni Iraq -- antagonism so bitter that the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980’s cost a million lives. It has been replaced by a tentative alliance that very likely will become a full-blown one after the United States leaves.

The Shiite drive accelerated during the Lebanon war. Hezbollah’s military successes against the IDF made Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the heroes of the entire Muslim world: Sunni and Shiite.

According to today’s Washington Post, Sunnis Muslims throughout the Arab world are even converting to Shiism to express solidarity with Nasrallah. “Even the [extreme Sunni] Wahhabis and the Shiites are getting together,” one analyst in Damascus told the Post. It is a phenomenon that must be very unsettling to the Saudis. And explains some recent developments.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington this week, the current Saudi ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal, said that “America's standing in every Arab and Muslim country is at its lowest ever'' and that the United States can only change that by moving on the Israeli-Palestinian front. "Because of the special relationship that America'' has with Israel, U.S. officials can urge Israel "to come forward and be more contributive to the peace efforts.”

That isn’t new. The Saudis have been saying that for years although their position on how to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement has moderated while their near desperation to achieve one has increased.

The new ingredient is that the Saudis now view Israel as facing the same threat they now confront: Shiite radicalism. While before they simply said that Israel should just do whatever the Palestinians want to end the conflict, now they are saying that they will work with both Israelis and Palestinians to craft a solution.

That is the meaning of the meeting which Yediot Achronoth reports took place two weeks ago between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and a top Saudi official. Yediot reports the meeting took place in Jordanian King Abdullah’s Amman palace late at night, after Olmert was flown there along with Prime Minister's Bureau Chief of Staff Yoram Turbowicz, Mossad Director Meir Dagan, and Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni.

The only details Yediot has are these: “The main issue was the threat posed by Iran by its attempts to obtain nuclear weapons and spread Shiite terror in the region. Olmert and his hosts reached an understanding at the meeting that secret intelligence cooperation should be continued against the Iranian threats.”

This is very significant. If these reports are correct, the Saudis are working with Israel to defuse the greatest single threat to Israel’s existence, that of a nuclear Iran. This is a development that would have been unimaginable a few years ago when Saudi Arabia was the de facto head of the rejectionist front.

The Saudis are now considering re-submitting their Arab League plan for peace with Israel. Reportedly, the Saudis have amended it since it was first introduced in 2002. In its previous incarnation, it would have required Israel to relinquish all of the territories occupied in 1967 as a precondition to negotiations toward a peace agreement between Israel and the entire Arab League.

The current version drops the precondition and envisions negotiations under international auspices toward a final status agreement that would establish a Palestinian state, guarantee Israel’s security and secure full recognition of Israel by all the members of the Arab League (that is, all the Arab states). In exchange, Israel would relinquish the ’67 territories which would constitute the Palestinian state. This is a possibility that needs to be pursued, and now, while the Bush administration is in office.

The relationship Woodward describes between the Bush family and the Saudi royals needs to be utilized to advance one of America’s most critical strategic goals in the Middle East: resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There is a unique constellation here which will not be around much longer. The Israelis and Saudis both have deep trust in the same US administration, the same president. And they both seem to have come around to the understanding that they face a common threat, the threat posed by Shiite radicalism.

In five weeks this administration goes into the final stretch of its eight-year term. That means it is legacy time. What better legacy could this administration leave on the foreign policy front than resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Jewish Censorship?

I have mixed feelings on this one. The British Guardian newspaper headlined on its front page yesterday, “Are Voices Being Silenced?” reporting that authors are being iced out of venues in the US by Jewish organizations.

According to reporter Ed Pilkington:

The British-based author and former publisher Carmen Callil has become embroiled in a growing dispute over the limits of freedom of speech in America after a party celebrating her new book on Vichy France was cancelled because of the opinion she expresses about the modern state of Israel.

A party in honor of “Bad Faith,” Callil's account of Louis Darquier, the Vichy official who arranged the deportation of thousands of Jews, was to have taken place at the French embassy in New York last night but was cancelled after the embassy became aware of a paragraph in the postscript of the book. In the postscript Callil says she grew anxious while researching the "helpless terror of the Jews of France" to see "what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people. Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians. Everyone forgets."

The embassy said the passage had been brought to its attention after a guest declined the invitation because of it. A spokesman denied allegations from Callil, reported by Reuters, that "fundamentalist Jews" had complained and had the party shut down.

Israeli misdeeds in relation to the Palestinians are not analogous to the horrors of the Holocaust. Ms. Calil didn’t indicate they were, but I could understand a reader seeing an implied analogy. On the other hand, it was an eloquent comment on today’s events and it’s the author’s right to express herself. At worst, it was in bad taste, but this must be a subjective judgment.

The Guardian reporter goes on to tie this to a similar controversy brewing around New York University historian Tony Judt “about restrictions on freedom of speech in the US in relation to comments on Israel.”

Judt is a British-born professor of history who was a leading activist of the left-Zionist youth group, Dror, in the 1960s, and suddenly burst forth about three years ago with a high-profile article in the New York Review of Books declaring that as “an ethnic state,” Israel is “an anachronism.” He claims not to be anti-Israel, but has been treated as a hero among the many leftists who regard Israel and its American supporters as a major source of conflict and aggression in the world. In the London Review of Books debate at New York’s Cooper Union the other week, about the Mearsheimer-Walt paper attacking the “Israel Lobby,” Judt lined up with John Mearsheimer in defending their thesis.

Judt claims that he similarly is being silenced by Jewish community pressures, as reporter Pilkington indicates:

His talk ... at a venue owned by the Polish consulate was cancelled by the consul, Krzysztof Kasprzyk, after inquiries from two Jewish organizations. Mr Kasprzyk told the Washington Post that he had been subjected to "delicate pressure".

Abraham Foxman, director of one of the groups, the Anti-Defamation League, denied any pressurizing. "All we did was to ask the consulate whether Tony Judt was speaking on its property. The decision to cancel was the Polish consulate's alone." Mr Judt riposted: "If all Mr Foxman was doing was making an inquiry, then he does an awful lot of inquiring. People are frequently being scared off."

Mr Judt said his views had been misrepresented. "The only thing I have ever said is that Israel as it is currently constituted, as a Jewish state with different rights for different groups, is an anachronism in the modern age of democracies."

In the second incident Mr. Judt pulled out from a talk on the Holocaust at Manhattan College after a Jewish leader, Rabbi Avi Weiss, warned he would hold a protest of Holocaust survivors outside the event. "This speech would have been a desecration," Rabbi Weiss told the Guardian.

My understanding is that when informed that Judt was only going to talk about the Holocaust and not Israel, Weiss relented. Prof. Judt, on the other hand, refused to show up on the grounds that he was being “censored.”

These are emotional issues. My experience with Judt (having chatted with him and observed him closely at a speaking engagement shortly after he became a figure of controversy) is that he is oblivious to how he comes across and totally clueless or indifferent to the fact that his words are used in the demonization and delegitimization of Israel and to reinforce anti-Semitism.

It is wrong for Jews to attempt to silence this man (or the other author, Ms. Calil), but it is perfectly understandable for such Jews and their organizations to express concern. Unfortunately, they are only enhancing Judt’s halo in some circles as a hero struggling against this all-powerful Jewish or pro-Israel cabal stifling debate in the US. (For a cogently-written original viewpoint that supplements but also coincides with my own, please read J. J. Goldberg’s editorial in The Forward .)

By the way, a few months ago, after Judt was made aware of a critical blog entry made by yours truly, he refused an invitation to respond, claiming falsely that my comments were a “personal attack.” Prof. Judt is playing the martyr here and may profit from this – much as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have benefitted from geshreing victimization, as they’ve just parlayed their shoddy scholarship into a book contract with a major publisher. Any serious questions Judt may have attempted to raise a few years ago are being lost in the hubbub. And the image around the world of a sinister Jewish conspiracy grows apace.

Yael Dayan Speaks Out

Moshe Dayan’s daughter, Yael, is now older than her father was when he died at the age of 66 in 1981. This is not to say that she’s old, but that she’s mature and accomplished. She has authored over a dozen books, including half a dozen novels, but has focused most of her energy since 1992 on politics. She served as a Labor party Member of Knesset for three terms before losing favor with that party, along with Yossi Beilin in 2003, for being too dovish, and moved with him to Meretz.

She led the Meretz electoral slate for the Tel Aviv city council to a plurality of the votes and as a result, became Tel Aviv’s deputy mayor in charge of its social welfare portfolio. She has since visited Meretz USA in New York on a variety of occasions, after or before heading west for urban affairs conferences and speaking engagements. We hosted her again two days ago at a public forum in New York and met with her privately last night at the monthly meeting of the Meretz USA executive committee.

These appearances have helped us understand the mess that Israel finds itself in today, following the summer war with Hezbollah. Ms. Dayan publically opposed Israel’s war weeks prior to the point that Meretz officially opposed it. Meretz as a party raised questions, abstained from votes of no confidence and called for negotiations and an expanded peace process, but actually opposed military operations only during the ground offensive in the closing days of the war.

So Yael Dayan spoke out early at an anti-war rally that was sponsored by Israel’s far left and not by the Zionist left of Meretz and Peace Now. But when she opened her speech by saying that she’s not there to criticize Israel’s soldiers, “all hell broke loose.” People stormed the stage and took away her microphone. She mentioned that rally participants largely consisted of Israeli Arabs, but she does not blame the Israeli Arab community, which she says mostly did not support this kind of behavior.

Her position is complex. First of all, she blames Israel’s new inexperienced leadership for starting a war of choice without knowing or ignoring the fact that Israel’s northern communities – both among Arabs and Jews – were without adequate defense, with shelters unprepared or non-existent. Military tactics appeared confused and inconsistent and the reserves were without proper supplies and training.

If the war had involved a response of the first few days to the Hezbollah attack on Israeli territory, killing and capturing soldiers, that might have been more defensible. But to choose an all-out war, when the army and infrastructure were not ready, was a bad mistake.

She sees Labor and Amir Peretz as having been badly damaged by taking the defense ministry – a position that he was totally unqualified for, and for having abandoned the social democratic platform that he had campaigned on and for which many people had invested high hopes. She confirms what others have said about the almost complete absence of an effective national government presence in the northern communities under attack. Non-governmental organizations and local communities took up the slack. In some cases, even local authorities fled in the face of the Katyushas, leaving the poor and disabled defenseless at this time of emergency. She indicated that the municipal government of Tel Aviv housed and served the needs of “tens of thousands” of refugees from the north.

In her stream of consciousness way (a prepared outline might have been helpful) she can both infuriate and inspire. Somewhat surprisingly she does not regard Israel’s use of cluster munitions as a “war crime.” She does not defend it, indicates it as possibly a mistake or wrong, but regards it as “malicious” to hurl such charges at a military that is trying to defend the country. Ms. Dayan is not necessarily consistent in everything she says, but she is clearly struggling for both a moral and practical solution for Israel and her neighbors fully in conformity with her progressive Zionist principles.

A Progressive Zionist’s Aliya: Why Now?

Our new contributor, Alex Stein, is 25, originally from London, has a masters degree in international relations and hopes to start a Ph. D. in about a year. He blogs at http://falsedichotomies.com and wanted us to include his e-mail address: alex.stein@talk21.com .

I have just made aliya. Considering the current pessimism surrounding prospects for peace in the Middle East, this move may surprise many. Given the rise of Hamas and the concomitant entrenchment of unilateralism in Israel, not to mention Iran’s nuclear ambitions, isn’t making aliya a strange thing to do? I don’t believe so. In fact, for anyone who shares my progressive Zionist ideals, now is a wonderful time to be taking the aliya plunge.

We go to the land to build and be built by it. This was the mantra of the early Zionists. Never has the appeal of nationalism towards progressives been stated so succinctly. One pithy phrase articulates the relationship between political progress and self-development. It may seem perverse, but what better time can there be for moving to Israel than this? For now is a time when the destruction is in place, when events are transpiring to make all our goals further away than ever.

In the case of Israel/Palestine, it is best not to believe the hype until the maps have been published, and even then not to believe the maps unless the source is beyond dispute. And although there has been wild speculation over Ehud Olmert’s plans to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank, the precise parameters of the plan are still unclear. (He hasn't really put it on the shelf: the annexation program continues apace ; he just hasn't yet worked out the details of how to implement it – this will prove to be an unsquarable circle.)

It seems that Olmert is seeking to annex the major settlement blocs – Ariel, Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim – as well as securing a permanent presence in the Jordan Valley. But this is far from certain. And even if this did constitute the plan, questions remain. Will there be a Jewish presence in Hebron? Will any military bases be left behind? Will Gaza and the West Bank finally be connected? What will happen in Jerusalem? Predictably, though, any suggestion of withdrawal from the West Bank has led to widespread criticism, particularly from the Religious Zionist and Christian Zionist camps. This was inevitable. Giving up one inch is too much for those who value land more life. There can be no satisfying such people.

At the outset, Olmert stated that he wanted to set Israel’s borders by 2010. Following the war in Lebanon, however, the plans have been shelved for the foreseeable future. The reasons for this are obvious. The best that Olmert is prepared to offer the Palestinians do not come close to satisfying their minimal demands. As a result, the Americans are trying to encourage Olmert to engage Palestinian President Abbas, an undoubtedly reasonable man. It seems that a meeting between the two will soon take place, although there is little hope for a significant outcome. Israel will surely soon return to unilateralism. But this should not distract from a basic realization: Israel will not be stable until Palestine is. This should be the progressive Zionist mantra, our response to unilateralism.

My Zionism, however, is primarily personal, not ideological. In other words, I do not aim to impose my Zionism on other Jews in the Diaspora. The decisions we have to take in our lives are terrifying enough without trying to impose them on other people. Furthermore, I do not summarily dismiss anti-Zionism as self-hatred. I believe anti-Zionists to be fundamentally mistaken, but I acknowledge the legitimacy of the position, and welcome the critique. I, however, hold an axiomatic conviction in the right of Jews to self-determination, and the deeply held belief that this does not necessitate persecution of the Other.

‘Progressive nationalism’ is all the rage nowadays, with the increasing realization that people express their autonomy more freely within a national context. Zionism needs to keep up the pace. National movements exist to promote what Will Kymlicka calls a “societal culture.” For progressive nationalists, this culture is necessarily ‘thin’, given that the state should not intervene in matters of religion, values and lifestyles. But it should not be dismissed as unimportant. The Zionist movement has done a tremendous job in resurrecting the Hebrew language and a vibrant Israeli national culture. It now has to make sure that the values of pluralism and democracy can spread far deeper into Israeli society.

Thus, in addition to solving the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel has to resolve the contradictions between its commitment to democracy and its commitment to the Jewish people. Despite what some doctrinaire anti-Zionists might say, this remains a viable goal and many people are working hard at formulating a way forward. Of most importance in this regard is providing Israeli-Arabs with full equality and integration into Israeli society. In addition lays the importance of confronting the religious/secular divide, particularly the status quo which gives the Orthodox establishment such disproportionate influence over the personal lives of Israeli citizens. These tasks may be difficult, but they are certainly feasible.

To dream madly and to imagine all possibilities has always been the Zionist way. As the date of aliya approaches, one should have delusions of grandeur, which should be replaced by humility on arrival. My five months (I need five years) of ulpan has become a time of observation, of re-acquainting myself with the facts on the ground, and trying to imagine how I can possibly fit in and what I can do. As soon as this honeymoon is over, I shall know I have arrived.

The above should suffice as an explanation of my ideological commitment to Zionism and the political context of my aliya. But I am aware it does not go the heart of why I have made this move. In all honesty, answering the ‘why’ question is an extremely difficult one. It would be great if I could reduce everything down to a neat narrative, but life is more complicated than that. I can’t, for example, name the day I finally decided that Israel was the place for me. Like all the best decisions (I hope), there was a rocky road to a gradual realization that I wanted to go.

So despite everything: despite Hamas, despite the worship of unilateralism, despite racism (on both sides), despite Ahmadinejad, despite my unerring commitment to universalism. We can only really achieve a universal order when we value the particular. I remain cynical as to how sustainable Jewish life is in the Diaspora, at least on a serious level where the decisions we take as Jews have ramifications beyond our tribe. Our little job in achieving the dream of genuine universality is to create an Israel where justice trumps ethnocentrism.

Theodor Herzl famously noted that “If you will it, it is no dream.” To refer to this aphorism is to invite the ridicule that is heaped on a bad poet, or someone unwilling to dirty themselves with detail. But it still remains Zionism’s most potent catchphrase, and one which has never been bettered as the embodiment of Zionism’s revolutionary potential. The time has come for Zionism to pave the trail for progressive nationalism everywhere. One of the most tragic aspects of modern history is the constant victory of reactionary nationalisms. Now, at a time of deep-rooted pessimism, is as good a time as ever for this process to be reversed.

CHELM IN JERUSALEM By R. Seliger

It's Sukkot, the holiday that requires observant Jews to feel the fragility of our existence by eating in the sukkah – the fragile temporary outdoor booth, exposed to the elements of early fall. I wrote this film review two years ago. If you have the opportunity, you should consider the delights of this unusual film.

"Ushpizin" resembles an Isaac Bashevis Singer tale in its rendering of totally sincere (or naive) characters immersed in religious observances, a belief in miracles, and a personal relationship with the Almighty.

The world of Jerusalem's Hasidim is largely a ghetto in its isolation from the rest of modern Israel, but not quite. Two convicts, evading the law, show up at the doorstep of our hero, Moshe Bellanga, and his good wife Malli, on erev Sukkot. It turns out that one criminal was a friend from Moshe's wayward days in Eilat before he became a Baal Tshuva [a newly observant Jew] as a Breslover Hasid. The Bellangas are overjoyed that the two can be their ushpizin – Aramaic for "holy guests" – for the holiday, as traditional lore enjoins. But there is nothing holy in how their low-life guests behave.

That the virtually destitute Bellangas have a sukkah and the money to celebrate the festival at all are "miracles." Actually, they are the result of perfectly explainable events, but the pious couple understands their dramatic change of fortune as divine intervention, as an answer to their devotion and a part of their ongoing dialogue with Hashem. Similarly, when bad fortune strikes, they are rendered bereft not only by the event itself, but also by the notion that they have done something displeasing in the eyes of God or, even more painfully, that their suffering has meaning they cannot fathom in the sacred scheme of things. Their fervor and the scenes of their acute questioning of God's purpose make this more than a comedy.


The authenticity of the convictions conveyed by the characters goes beyond roles portrayed by actors, for the Bellangas are played by an actual Hasidic couple, and the movie is anchored in a story that the scriptwriter knows to be true. Shuli Rand is both the writer and the star of this film, a real Baal Tshuva, who had left his career in acting eight years before to find a new ultra-Orthodox way of life with his wife. Now, to play a man with his wife, he had to enlist his spouse, Michal Bat-Sheva Rand– not an actress– as a co-star. She performs credibly and sweetly; their mutual love and high regard radiates even as their interactions are filmed entirely without physical contact.

That Mrs. Rand is decidedly on the round side, yet nonetheless the genuine object of Mr. Rand/Bellanga's romantic affection, is a refreshing reminder of how non-Hollywood this film is. The secular Israeli filmmaker, Gidi Dar, cast and directed "Ushpizin" with the advice and consent of Shuli Rand's Breslover community rabbi.

An outside observer might wonder, however, how members of such a close-knit group would be so impoverished that they had virtually no money for food and none for the most basic requirements of observing Sukkot – no sukkah, no lulav, no etrog – except for "miraculous" events at the eleventh hour. Would not such upright members of the community have been taken care of at least with invitations to share meals in the sukkahs of others? But maybe these realistic questions undermine the "magical" quality of this tale that is part of its charm.

And the sweet and humane resolution of a real-life misunderstanding, which Shuli Rand expands upon in writing the screenplay, is a lesson that the world would do well to emulate. When a Hasid (or any profoundly observant Jew) realizes that he has inadvertently wronged another, he meets the wronged person face to face, asking his forgiveness. The wronged party is more or less obligated to absolve the wrongdoer of malicious intent. The confrontation is truly successful if the wronged one's anger is transformed into good will and may even end with an embrace.

So what is the lure of this way of life to outsiders? It is not that the questions and the struggles of everyday existence disappear, but that they are framed within a coherent worldview and, more importantly, buffered by rituals and a supportive community. One can also see the narrowness that drives many away – perhaps as many or more than there are newcomers – but that is the subject of other films.

Israeli Arabs demand their fair share

This is J. Zel Lurie’s column written on Oct. 4:

You can learn a lot from overheard conversations.

Forty years ago, in a restaurant somewhere in Israel, I overheard an Arab waiter protesting to a visiting American Jew that his village had no electricity, while the new Jewish settlement which had been built on the ruins of a neighboring Arab village, abandoned during the War of Independence, “had everything.”

The American replied: “Jews in the United States raise money to help other Jews. If you need help, apply to King Saud.”

“I’m an Israeli not a Saudi,” muttered the Arab waiter as he turned toward our table.

Still angry, he told us that his grandfather had sheltered a pioneer Jewish settler in 1917 who was wanted by the Turks. Unlike his neighbors who in 1948 had fled to Lebanon, his village had chosen to live in Israel. “We deserve better treatment,” he said.

Another conversation took place in Dir el Assad 25 years ago. Dir el Assad lies across the highway from Carmiel, a large and bustling Jewish city, which had been built partly on Dir el Assad’s farm land. I was doing a story on the lack of sewage in Arab villages in the Galilee.

As milky waste water ran down the steps in front of his home, I talked to an Arab teacher who was leading his neighbors in an effort to get a budget from the government to build a sewer. But he didn’t talk much about the need for a sewer, which has since been built with a combination of local money and that of the Israeli authorities. His major complaint was that he had to pay tuition for his daughters music lessons at the Carmiel conservatory, which was free to residents of Carmiel.

I tried to soothe him. “Residents of Carmiel pay taxes to support their schools,” I said. But he would not be soothed.

Fast forward to last summer’s war in Lebanon. Yossi Klein Halevi reported in The New Republic a conversation he overheard while standing outside an Arab home in Haifa, which had been hit by a Katyusha killing two Arabs.

“A Muslim neighbor,” Yossi writes, “remarks that he had sent his family out of Haifa after Nasrallah had urged Haifa’s Arabs to flee the city to allow him to attack without harming his fellow Arabs,.‘Nasrallah said that he didn’t want to shed the blood of his own,’ he explained.

“’And are we not the same blood?’” demands a Jewish security guard dispatched to watch over the site. ‘We all share the blood of our father Abraham. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other.’”

Unlike in 1948, not many Israeli Arabs listened to Nasrallah’s admonitions to flee. They know that they are far better off than their relatives who are sitting in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

Over 40 percent – 18 out of 43 – of the Israelis killed by almost 4,000 Katyushas were Israeli Arabs. Arabs make up 20 percent of the almost 7 million Israelis but they are half of the population of northern Israel where the Katyushas fell. The Arabs are now demanding their fair share of the billion dollars being raised to compensate and repair the damage in northern Israel.

“Stuck with each other” has finally entered the consciousness of American Jewish organizations which will raise a third of the billion dollars. They recently got together and decided to devote funds to helping Israeli Arabs.

Shalom Dichter, co-director of Sikkuy, which monitors government treatment of the Arab minority, is still worried about it, “because of the record of the State of Israel for unequal division of resources between Jewish and Arab citizens. Patterns of discrimination in government actions are deeply rooted in government services.”

For instance a small business development arm of the ministry of trade and industry accepted without question a donation from a Jew, who still thought like the Jewish makher, who told the Arab 40 years ago that he didn’t raise money to help Arabs. The donor specified that his money be used only to help Jews and military veterans.

While Sikkuy has published evidence year after year of government discrimination against Arabs it is still against the law and never admitted publicly. After an Israeli Arab entrepreneur had been refused a loan, the government’s legal counsel instructed the ministry to return the donation.

Jeff Kaye, public affairs director of the Jewish Agency, which, as of last week, had already dispensed $70 million, claimed that aid would be spent “absolutely proportionally” between Jews and Arabs. He estimated that 25 percent would go to Arabs, who make up half the population in the Galilee. Still that is a big advance for the Jewish Agency.

Four Israeli Arab villages on the Lebanese border, which hosted artillery batteries during the war, are going to court to demand that they be treated as well as their Jewish neighbors. The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on October 30.

And here is some good news from the Galilee. The two Galilean Jewish-Arab bilingual schools run by Hand in Hand opened the school year last month with 10 to 20 percent more pupils than the previous year.

But it’s time for minister of education Yuli Tamir to pay some attention to the Dovrat Commission report which recommended that the ministry foster Jewish-Arab education. As a first step, she should set up a department for Jewish-Arab education,

One of the Hand in Hand schools comes under the supervision of the department for Jewish schools. The other is supervised by the department for Arab schools. Both schools are run more or less the same way with identical curriculum.

There is a third Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem and a fourth bilingual school in the Jewish-Arab village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (the Oasis of Peace) in the Judean Hills.

Plans are under way for three more bilingual binational schools in Haifa, Beersheba and Tel Aviv. Pay attention, Yuli Tamir.

A temporary respite for Sam Bahour

The following is a follow-up to Gershon Baskin’s report of a week ago, “Sad Story of Sam Bahour.” It is an update by Sam Bahour himself.

A few hours ago, I returned from Amman to Palestine via the Allenby Bridge. After a three-hour wait by the Israelis and being told that an Israeli security official needed to speak to me, I was called to the immigration clerk's window and asked about my wife and children.

Subsequently, I was given my passport with a three-month visa stamped in it. No security official ever showed.

While I waited I was joined by many friends who were passing from Amman to Palestine. Some sat with me in solidarity, others waited for their own approval to enter their country, yet others were sadly denied entry and returned to Jordan.

For me personally, and for the campaign, today marks a small indicator that our efforts are
bearing fruit, however, we are far from done. While in Amman, I met with 14 persons who have already been denied entry. Some cases are very sad, for example, a mother whose seven kids and husband are in Palestine and she, a U.S. citizen, was denied entry.

Later this week we will test a potential breakthrough that we have been working on and ask these folks to attempt to return to Palestine. Rest assured, we will not rest until access to Palestine is free and unfettered.

Again, I thank everyone for their calls, concerns and efforts. I only ask that we all re-
double our efforts to bring this humiliation and collective punishment to an end, once and for
all. Remembering the smiles and hugs of my daughters when they found me home after school – Sam

Ben-Gurion’s Notorious Quotes: Their Polemical Uses & Abuses

I’ve been engaged in a long-term e-mail debate with anti-Zionists, associated with David McReynolds, a former leader of the War Resisters’ League and a tiny remnant that still calls itself the Socialist Party, USA. Seth Farber, one of the most vociferous (although not quite the nastiest) of my interlocutors, when asked, gave me his “just” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: for Israel to renounce the Law of Return and for Palestinians to have a full right of return – in other words, for Israel to surrender. (Farber is the author of Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, and is an uncompromising foe of Zionism who regards the late Israel Shahak as a mentor and lionizes the Reform rabbi Elmer Berger, who founded the anti-Zionist American Council on Judaism.)

Another comrade of McReynolds recently supplied a long list of quotations from David Ben-Gurion (which I include following these comments) clearly advocating ethnic cleansing against the Arabs. Posting these quotes was meant as a decisively fatal blow to the moral legitimacy of Israel and Zionism. But the debate must not end there.

Ben-Gurion was Israel's George Washington, and just as we know that Washington and other US founding fathers were slave-holders and that Washington destroyed the towns of the Iroquois, it's hard to find a founding father of any country born in war who did not order ruthless acts. And Ben-Gurion was not of the same political stream as Hashomer Hatzair, Mapam, Ihud and Brit Shalom – Zionists with different ideas.

But when I raised similar facts (and worse) about the man who would have been the Palestinians' George Washington, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – who was actively allied with Hitler and advocated genocide against the Jews – McReynold’s comrades wouldn't hear of it, downplayed his role and called me nasty names. Not all but most of these quotes came after the Arabs had launched their violent efforts to crush the Yishuv in late '47 and then to destroy the State of Israel after its declaration of independence in May '48; it's not surprising that B-G would say some hyperbolic things after the Arabs had irrevocably shown their hand by launching their attacks.

To sum up my reaction:
1. The Jews were engaged in a life or death struggle with the Arabs of Palestine, mostly because of the choice of the latter.
2. Selected quotes of one leader are not representative of an entire spectrum of parties and factions that equally saw themselves as "Zionist." (They might not even be so representative of his movement or even of him; they were uttered in times of extreme pressure.)
3. When is the bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and violence of the Arab world going to become PC for the left to examine honestly and completely?
4. How many countries in the world were not born of historical "sin" of some sort or other?
5. When are we going to stop talking ancient history?
6. When are we going to stop talking about"Zionism" and start relating to this conflict in human terms? Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians have to see each other as fellow human beings entitled to equal respect, rights and protections. – Ralph Seliger

What did David Ben-Gurion say?

"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. ... Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice."
-- David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

"We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return.”
David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

Ben Gurion also warned in 1948: Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes: “The old will die and the young will forget."

"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."
David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

"If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel."
Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).

"It's not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion." --Ben Gurion


"Every school child knows that there is no such thing in history as a final arrangement -- not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements."
-- Ben Gurion, War Diaries, 12/03/1947 following Israel's "acceptance" of the U.N. Partition of 11/29/1947 (Simha Flapan, "Birth of Israel," p.13)

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population? ‘Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ' Drive them out! ' "
Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

Partition: "after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine "
-- Ben Gurion, p.22 "The Birth of Israel, 1987" Simha Flapan.

"The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today -- but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concerns of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." P. 53, "The Birth of Israel, 1987" Simha Flapan

October, 1936, during the Jewish Agency Executive meeting Ben-Gurion arguing in favor of transfer as a policy, he said “We are not a state and Britain will not do it for us…” although “there is nothing wrong in the idea.”

“If it was permissible to move an Arab from the Galilee to Judea, why it is impossible to move an Arab from Hebron to Transjordan, which is much closer? There are vast expanses of land there and we are over crowded….Even the High Commission agrees to a transfer to Transjordan if we equip the peasants with land and money. If the Peel Commission and the London Government accept, we’ll remove the land problem from the agenda.”

The Arabs, Ben-Gurion claimed, would not become landless as a result of Zionist land acquisition; they would be transferred to Transjordan.

October 29, 1936 the 21 member of the Jewish Agency Executive endorsed the proposal of a transfer of displaced Arab farmers to Transjordan. Only two of the four non-Zionist members opted to dissent.
Flapan, Zionism and the Palestinians, citing protocols of the Executive meeting, p. 261

12 July 1937, Ben-Gurion entered in his diary: “The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own feet during the days of the First and Second Temple”
– a Galilee free from Arab population.

Ben-Gurion went so far to write: “We must prepare ourselves to carry out” the transfer [emphasis in original]

27 July 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We have never wanted to dispossess the Arabs [but] because Britain is giving them part of the country which had been promised to us, it is fair that the Arabs in our state be transferred to the Arab portion”

5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…. And, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places- then we have force at our disposal.”

“It is very possible that the Arabs of the neighboring countries will come to their aid against us. But our strength will exceed theirs. Not only because we will be better organized and equipped, but because behind us there stands a still larger force, superior in quantity and quality …the whole younger generation of Jews from Europe and America.”
Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p.297-299, p. 330-331.
See also Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 182-189

Ben-Gurion in an address to the central committee of the Histadrut on 30 December 1947:
“In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about a million, including almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority…. There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.”

On the 6th of February 1948, during a Mapai Party Council, Ben-Gurion responded to a remark from a member of the audience that “we have no land there” [in the hills and mountains west of Jerusalem] by saying: “The war will give us the land. The concepts of “ours” and “not ours” are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning”
(Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. 1, entry dated 6 February 1948. p.211)

Addressing the Mapai Council the following day, Ben-Gurion declared: “From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema… there are no Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been so Jewish. In many Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single Arab. I do not assume that this will change… What had happened in Jerusalem… is likely to happen in many parts of the country …in the six, eight or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.”
(Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. 1, entry dated 7 February 1948. p. 210-211)

And two months later, Ben-Gurion speaking to the Zionist Actions Committee on 6 April, Ben-Gurion declared: “We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area….I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of the Arab population.”
[Ben-Gurion, Behilahem Yisrael, Tel Aviv, Mapai Press, 1952, pp. 86-87]

Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on 12 July 1937: “the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish State…. We have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself.”
(Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p. 299)

Activist invests in real estate and peace

This was originally meant as an “Other Voices” feature for the autumn issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS, but it literally didn’t fit. Gila Svirsky is a well-known feminist peace activist. Albeit strident in tone, she is tireless in her dedication. This piece also illustrates a class aspect that perhaps undermines her cause; it is in part about her pursuit of a second home. It’s sobering to consider that most Israelis who resist dovish solutions are struggling working class people who probably would regard Ms. Svirsky as an elitist.– R. Seliger

The Occupation? Fuggedaboutit! By Gila Svirsky

What a stroke of luck – 10 days before a war breaks out in Lebanon, we buy an apartment in Nahariya! We had been looking for a place for about a year. We went to Cyprus to check out the beautiful new communities on the northern shore – it’s quite a bargain, if you don’t mind settling in occupied territory. We thought about Mauritius, but the savings on real estate would be offset by the costs of flights there. So finally we settled on an apartment under construction in Israel’s sweetest little town on the Mediterranean coast – just five miles south of the border with Lebanon.

We were looking for a sea view. Had the balcony already been built, we would have been able to watch the Israeli navy array itself along the coast, laying siege to Lebanon.

We wanted to be close to Kibbutz Saar, just north of Nahariya, where one of my grown daughters lives, except when she evacuates herself to safer points south. And we wanted a getaway from turbulent Jerusalem – somewhere we could spend long quiet weekends and eventually a serene retirement. Several dozen rockets dropped into Kibbutz Saar and our serene neighborhood this weekend.

In listening to the media, to my neighbors, to the gas station attendant, I am amazed by the lack of comprehension: “We leave Gaza, they shoot missiles at us from there. We leave Lebanon, they kidnap our boys. How do they expect us to leave the West Bank? Fuggedaboudit!”

These views, expressed by most Israelis these days, can only fill me with awe at how the Big Lie works: Repeat it often enough, publicly enough, by political and spiritual leaders, and the whole country/world will begin to believe that Israel is innocent of all wrongdoing and that these attacks emerged from a political vacuum. It’s as if there is no occupation, no siege on Gaza, no 39 years (and counting) of military and political oppression with all its associated killing, maiming, home destruction, and livelihood wrecking. What is it about “end the occupation” that they don’t understand?

No, I do not justify Kassam missiles or Katyusha rockets hurled at Israeli towns or the kidnapping of anyone (even armed soldiers in tanks). I do not justify any attacks by missile or suicide bomber or remotely detonated device.

Nor do I justify the endless shelling of Gaza and Lebanon – land, sea, and air – for any reason at all, let alone for purposes more related to posturing and domestic public opinion than with accomplishing any political objective. “How could we not respond when they kill and kidnap our soldiers?” asked Yuli Tamir, our Education Minister (for goodness sakes!) and a former Peace Now activist. As if shelling is sure to make the Hezbollah leaders remorseful and let our boys come home. [Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah did indicate remorse recently – Ed.]

So, as usual in wars, we have an alliance of the jingoistic decision-makers on both sides, whipping up patriotism while they watch the fighting on-screen from bunkers deep in the earth. In Israel, this war absolutely thrills the right wing: The escalation keeps up the militaristic approach to problem solving, discredits the view that Israel must leave the occupied territories, and distances the current warfare from its roots in the ongoing occupation. What’s not to love about this war?

And as usual in Israel, a few cantankerous peace organizations – the Coalition of Women for Peace, Gush Shalom, Taayush, and a few others – increase their presence on the streets. At Women in Black last Friday, we carried our regular “End the Occupation” signs, buttressed with signs saying, “Stop the Killing – Negotiate!” and “It’s the Occupation, Stupid!” But when the cannons roar, so do the bystanders, and a dozen police were there to prevent anything worse than words and gestures.

A day will come when this small corner of the Mediterranean will again hold sailboats and water skiers, and I’m looking forward to that view from the balcony. I still think it was a good investment.

Peretz opens dialogue with Peace/NGOs

The following is just in from our khaver, Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal:

On Tuesday, September 26th, members of the Israeli Peace/NGO forum representing about 60 Israeli peace and human rights organizations, including Israeli representatives of joint Israeli-Palestinian organizations, met with Defense Minister Amir Peretz in Tel Aviv.

The reports which appeared in the Israeli print and electronic media ignored the most important potentially constructive outcome of the meeting: Peretz agreed that a regular channel of communication, he called it a “mechanism," will be created between a small forum representing the Israeli PeaceNGO community and the Defense Ministry. This would enable the Israeli Peace/NGOs to raise specific issues of concern, such as the question of human rights violations, permits, checkpoints, crossings, the removal of the outposts, behavior of the settlers and IDF soldiers, etc.

The steering committee of the Israeli Peace/NGO forum will follow this up by deciding how to implement this idea, in communication with Peretz's aides at the Defense Ministry. The essence of the proposal is its potential. The question, of course, is whether it will be seriously carried out, and whether such communication can help create real change on the ground.

In a brief follow-up meeting on the spot, Galia Golan also suggested that this mechanism also be used to discuss and promote ideas connected to the peace process.

The meeting itself was quite (understandably) tense. Although it was called for 5 p.m., Peretz arrived at about 6 p.m., though he did stay till almost 7. Difficult negotiations were held with Peretz's aides about the format, and in the end they agreed that the encounter would be opened by Ron Pundak, followed by two presentations by representatives of the Peace/NGOs, followed by a response/speech by Peretz. It was agreed that the war would not be dealt with in the encounter, and Peretz did not accept that there be five initial presentations, or that there be any follow-up questions, answers or discussion.

Peretz was defensive throughout the meeting, and the essence of his presentation appeared in the Israeli Hebrew language media, including comments about the Kassams, the need to combat terror, etc. He seemed to have adopted security thought patterns in his presentation. He did clearly state that the ultimate solution has to be a political one, and that he is in favor of resuming talks with Abu Mazen. He also said that the Defense Ministry would not allow this year's olive harvest to be violated by the settlers.

I would add that the people who appeared to a be most angry at Peretz were the ones who voted for him. Perhaps the rest of us had fewer expectations, though Peretz clearly knew that he was facing an audience which he had disappointed. The fact that he came, and agreed to set up "the mechanism" of communication, was a sign that he is at least trying to reach out to the peace camp.

P.S. It turns out that while Peretz was giving less than an hour to the Peace/NGOs, Prime Minister Olmert devoted seven full hours to a discussion with the settler leaders of the national religious Zionist movement.

Wishing an easy fast to those who do and G'mar khatima tova (to finish with a good decree)- Ed.