Journalist Switches from Livni to Meretz

Larry Derfner writes this about himself: "Politically, I would describe myself as an ultra-liberal Zionist; as journalist Bradley Burston put it, I’m 'probably as far left as a centrist can be'.” His once impressive career as a journalist has largely been derailed by his outspoken views, plus the recent contraction in print journalism.

Derfner has changed his mind from supporting Tzipi Livni's new HaTenuah party to Meretz, because he sees Meretz as uniquely courageous in pressing for peace. This endorsement is welcome news, and I agree that the failure to advance a peace process in the current situation is Israel's fault; Netanyahu's government clearly prefers expanding settlements to negotiating peace. But I see his larger assertion, laying the entire blame for the conflict with the Palestinians at Israel's feet, as unnecessarily combative and not entirely accurate.

This May be Just the Beginning...

I was pleased to be asked recently to blog at PPI.  As this week is one of the more peaceful ones in the year, at least for American Jews and academics, it is a good time to start.

First, a brief introduction:  I’ve been affiliated with various organizations of the Zionist left in the US and Israel for several decades now, including a stint on American Friends of Meretz’s National Board in the 1990s, and am now on the ‘National Advisory Board’ of J-Street.  I am a Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland (my day job) and am also Managing Editor of the Israel Studies Review, an academic journal.  

In 1989 I set up the first Washington, D.C. office of Americans for Peace Now and was its D.C. representative for a year and a half before I fell victim to intra-organizational politics.  From 1996-2002 my family and I lived in Jerusalem while I coordinated joint Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Jordanian research and civil society projects at the Truman Institute for Peace at the Hebrew University, also spending a lot of time in Jordan, and becoming part of the Israeli-Palestinian “Peace NGO” community.  Having arrived in Jerusalem at the height of the peace process – in earshot of the first of the February 1996 suicide bombs – we moved back to the US in the depths of the second Intifada in 2002.  

I’ve written a lot about Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives, and my second co-edited book on the subject is coming out this summer.  I’m also interested in the role of Islamism in the Middle East, and am currently working on a new paper exploring Israeli options for dealing with Hamas.  

Campaign to Educate Israeli Youth about Occupation

An online campaign has just been launched to bring the award-winning documentary film, "Five Broken Cameras" to the attention of Israeli students.

Update re Women at the Wall

[This links to a NY Times update on this issue; and this links to a way to raise your voice on this matter.] Jake Wallis Simons, reporting from Israel for the British newspaper, The Telegraph, muses on the peculiarities of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel and the latest twist in their battle against Jewish women asserting their rights to pray at Jerusalem's Western Wall:

Jeremy Ben-Ami's talk in Boston

I've probably never heard a stronger, more self-confident presentation from J Street's head, Jeremy Ben-Ami, than the one above; I wish I had his poise in arguing our common pro-Israel/ pro-peace perspective. Yet Jeremy was mistaken in disregarding Gershon Baskin's claim that the killing of Hamas military chief Jabari was counterproductive.

According to Baskin, Jabari had been instrumental in working to release Gilad Shalit and was considering a long-term truce on the very day that Israel killed him.  Baskin explicitly says that Jabari was not a "moderate," but that he represented an opening to a more workable future for Gaza and Israel.

Breaching Tyler's 'Fortress Israel'

I've recently seen a broadcast on C-Span of the New America Foundation hosting journalist Patrick Tyler on his new book, "Fortress Israel."  Although I haven't read it yet, I'm convinced from seeing the broadcast that Tyler has no sinister anti-Israel agenda in mind; but his analysis seems woefully ill-informed and inadequate.  

Moshe Sharett and David Ben-Gurion

Thomas Mitchell's review, published here, reveals a flaw in the author's vision: Tyler provides the Arab side with no real agency or responsibility in the ongoing conflict.  He focuses on the ancient rivalry between Moshe Sharett and David Ben-Gurion back in the 1950s, rather than on the more recent history of the Oslo peace process of the 1990s and the Intifada and post-Intifada years of the past decade.

Sharett was Israel's first foreign minister (1948-56) and second prime minister (1953-55) until, according to the author, he was undermined by Ben-Gurion favoring a more aggressive and militaristic posture toward the Arab world.  Yet Tyler does not account for Ben-Gurion's very dovish stance after the 1967 Six Day War when he advised a quick return of the territories taken by Israel in that war.  Nor does Tyler explain Ben-Gurion's decision to go for an armistice at the end of the '48 war, rather than to reconquer the Old City of Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, at a time when the tide of war had completely shifted in Israel's favor.

Arguing 'Moral Equivalency'

Whenever a liberal pro-Israel commentator speaks or writes on Israel's shortcomings, s/he's aware of stepping into a minefield.  I was reminded of this when watching The Forward columnist Jay Michaelson debate a right-wing guest on Rabbi Mark Golub's Shalom TV discussion program, L'Chayim.  The conservative commentator, Michael Prell, came off as so over-the-top in his pronouncements (e.g., condemning Obama's "apology tour" of 2009, during which he made his famous Cairo speech) that eventually Rabbi Golub pressed Prell to respond directly to Michaelson's demand for more specifics.

In general, Rabbi Golub attempts to maintain a centrist perspective, but he is so protective of Israel's image that he tends to accept many right-wing talking points regarding the history of Israel's conflict with the Arab world and the extent of the Jihadist threat emanating from the Muslim world. I don't doubt that there is a "Jihadist" threat, but US diplomacy could make it far worse if it tars most Muslims with the same brush as Islamist extremists, or even if it defines all Islamists (such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas) as global Jihadists.  As Michaelson indicated, as bad as Hamas is, it is a religious nationalist movement, not one that fights for the establishment of a new Caliphate and the worldwide hegemony of Islam.  

Yet Michaelson was overly concerned to disavow a "moral equivalency" between Israel's cause and that of the Palestinians.  As national causes, I do see them as roughly equivalent in their legitimacy.  I happen to have more insight into and sympathy for the Israeli side -- because it's "my side" -- but I don't want to engage in wholesale condemnations of either side.  They each have legitimacy in their own terms and each side has done things at various times that I see as either morally or politically wrong.  In the words of writer and peace advocate Amos Oz, this conflict is not about right versus wrong, but right versus right. 

Dissent review: 'Zionism and Its Discontents'

Susie Linfield

Susie Linfield heads the cultural journalism program at New York University, and joined our Israel Symposium this year.  She is on the editorial board of Dissent magazine and wrote a very thoughtful and heartfelt review essay on four books about Israel, for the current (Fall 2012) issue:

• The Crisis of Zionism by Peter Beinart, Times Books, 2012, 289 pp.
• The Unmaking of Israel by Gershom Gorenberg, HarperCollins, 2011, 325 pp.
• Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me by Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman, Hill and Wang, 2012, 172 pp. 
• Underground to Palestine and Reflections Thirty Years Later by I.F. Stone, Hutchinson & Co., 1979, 260 pp. (First published, 1946.)

Prof. Linfield begins by discussing a personal incident that sounds familiar, when she finds herself awkwardly alone at a party in her modestly-expressed pro-Zionist sentiments ("I believe in a state for the Jewish people”).  Since I probably socialize with a more explicitly "Jewish" crowd than Linfield, I'm more often lonely in my views from the opposite direction, where I'm the one who is the most critical of Israeli actions.  But I've also experienced friendly interactions that suddenly soured when my fundamentally pro-Israel perspective became known.   

Such events relate directly to the books Linfield examines. Both Peter Beinart and Gershom Gorenberg are religious Jews who identify as Zionists (Gorenberg is an American Israeli) and write with passion on how Israel's policies are undermining the widespread respect and support the Zionist enterprise once had. I agree with Linfield that Beinart's book is good but not without flaws; I haven't read Gorenberg's book, but knowing some of his work, I'm sure that it's very good. 

Baskin Suggests New Deal for Gaza

FOR THOSE WHO ARE DISAPPOINTED IN MASHAAL'S SPEECH, READ BASKIN'S NEWEST THOUGHTS.  They're important and challenging.  Who will take Baskin up on his suggestions?--Lilly

[He suggests that Israel and the Palestinian Authority end their economic and political relations with Gaza unless and until its Hamas rulers sign on to a peace process with Israel.  This would include a two-year phase out period for Israel's supply of electricity and water; time enough, he says, for Gaza to develop its own substitute sources for energy and desalinated water, as it builds a normal economy in trading with the world via Egypt.]  

Strategic errors and challenges By GERSHON BASKIN

I still believe, quite strongly, that the decision to assassinate Ahmed Jabari and wage war in Gaza was a strategic error. Without the war in Gaza Israel could have achieved a long-term cease-fire arrangement that would have been better than what we now have. Instead of strengthening the pragmatic trends in Hamas, we gave the most radical elements in Hamas a platform and removed any chance of the pragmatists coming to the fore. That explains the shift in Khaled Mashaal’s position from a few weeks ago when on CNN he talked about non-violent resistance and a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders.

Ahmed Jabari, as I have said in the past, was not a man of peace, but he was emerging as one of the primary pragmatists in Hamas. .... Now, the pragmatic camp in Hamas has been killed along with Jabari.... 

Historian Reflects on 'Israel Symposium,' Part 3

Irwin Wall continues from Part 2, to conclude his reflections on our "Israel Symposium," Oct. 20-27:

Noam Sheizaf (rt.) with Shani Chabansky of our group.

How can Israel harbor in its Jewish population the incredible diversity of opinion to which we were exposed over six and a half intensive days? To listen to Dov Henin is to visit another planet. Dayan wants to occupy and oppress the Arabs. Henin wants to live with them on the basis of total and full equality. He is a Jewish MK representing a mostly Arab party, known as Hadash, formed in part by Israeli communists. Henin sees no moral alternative to a Jewish-Arab political party in what must in the end become a Jewish-Arab polity. How Jews deal with their Arab population must be the acid test of the democracy and morality of the Zionist enterprise. Hadash has only four MKs. Even added to the three for Meretz, the Israeli left does not add up to very much these days.

Meretz is campaigning on the theme “Leftists go home.” A phrase once meant to tell leftists to go back to Russia, Meretz takes it to mean that while 6-8% of Israelis may vote their way, they actually could total 18-20% of the electorate. Meretz proposes to win them back. The evidence, however, is that being left is a negative in the eyes of most voters.

Noam Sheizaf, a young progressive journalist, is a founder of the web publication 972mag.com (972 being Israel's telephone country code). Young progressives are trying to rejuvenate the left and adapt it to the new age. They staff numerous human rights organizations, the NGOs that dot the political landscape and which the Netanyahu government seeks to repress, and most importantly, they played a critical role in the protests of 2011. Although primarily a struggle against the high cost of living, Sheizaf sees the demonstrators as animated by progressive ideals; their effect on the Israeli political landscape has yet to be felt. However, we met one of the leading luminaries of the movement, Stav Shaffir, who has chosen to be a candidate of the rather staid Labor Party.

Historian Reflects on 'Israel Symposium,' Part 2

'Resistance art' on Israel's West Bank separation wall.

Prof. Irwin Wall continues his reflections on our "Israel Symposium," Oct. 20-27, 2012:

Israel’s policy is not to choose between one state and two. The European Union is threatening a boycott of West Bank settlement products. But the Americans have foresworn pressuring Israel. And the occupation is no longer an issue in Israeli politics. Only Meretz continues to call attention to it and warn the Israeli public that social justice and the occupation are incompatible with one another. The Palestinian Authority is providing the current sense of security that so works to the advantage of Likud, which is consequently able to pretend it is its own achievement. But Israel and the Palestinian Authority sit on a powder keg, and the pressure is likely to build under the occupation until it once again explodes, with a force and power no one can foresee.

Benny Begin is regarded as a human rights liberal in Likud, but is a staunch opponent of a two-state solution. There is no “West Bank” in his view, there are only “Judea and Samaria” and these belong to the Jewish people. The “Green Line” never had any validity. Oslo was a historical error of major proportions. No sooner were the Palestinians recognized and given their autonomy than the region dissolved into uncontrolled terrorism. Attempts at peace with the Palestinians have always failed and always will fail. Barak in 2000 and Olmert in 2008 offered the Palestinians the moon. They could have had 97% of their historic land yet they refused. This proves that they want one state for themselves in all of Palestine. There is one state in all of Palestine, to be sure; it is called Israel. Two states is a recipe for disaster; a Palestinian state will be governed by Hamas in the interest of Iran, as Gaza already is. Begin wishes the Palestinians well. He wants to see them prosperous and flourishing—as a semi-autonomous region comprising 40% of the West Bank.

Historian Reflects on 'Israel Symposium'

Irwin Wall is an emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Riverside.  He is also currently a visiting scholar at New York University. Prof. Wall participated in this organization's "Israel Symposium," Oct. 20-27, 2012, and has just been admitted to our executive board.  His reflections begin here:

Dr. Wall flanked by R. Skolnik & R. Seliger

Meretz is a left-wing Israeli political party committed to social justice in Israel and an end to the occupation of the West Bank. It seeks a secular Israel in which there is separation between religion and state and a negotiated two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace. Each year it hosts a week-long Israel tour for Americans, organized in the U.S. by Partners for Progressive Israel. The “Israel Symposium” is an invaluable experience for those seeking insight into the functioning of the Jewish state today. It arranges meetings with a range of informed persons in politics and journalism, social activism and religious life, allowing those who experience the Symposium to come away with a coherent picture of Israeli politics and society.

The underlying theme was a troubling one. The issue is not primarily one of external threats to Israel’s security, but of the internal fractures in Israeli society, the demographic pattern that is shifting the relationship between the religious and other groups in society, and the corrosive effects of the military occupation of the West Bank.

Hamas celebrates its 'victory'

I was mortified and bemused by the report of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's triumphant visit to Gaza, including his emergence from a plastic representation of a missile (not exactly like a stripper popping out of a birthday cake, but I guess the closest Hamas would ever come to such frivolity), with the violent symbolism lost on nobody. As Hussein Ibish indicates at the Daily Beast, this "victory celebration," after Gazans sustained at least 165 deaths as compared with Israel's five, with an attendant disproportion in injuries and property damage, is surreal and delusional; he is also not sparing of the cynical role of Israel in the use of Hamas as an excuse and diversion from negotiating peace with the Palestinian Authority:

At Hamas’s anniversary celebration in Gaza last week, the organization’s Politburo leader Khaled Meshaal delivered one of the most cynical, damaging and dangerous speeches in the history of the Palestinian national movement. ...

The cost of this “victory” to the people of Gaza has been enormous: over 175 deaths and at least $300 million in damage to property and infrastructure. But the cost of Meshaal’s “victory” speech to the Palestinian national movement could be even more devastating in the long run. It locks him and Hamas into the most hardline, confrontational and maximalist positions, making both Palestinian national reconciliation and progress towards independence far more difficult in the coming years. ...

Gisha: Remarkable Israeli Human Rights NGO

Sari Bashi (JustVision.org)

I am so impressed by Sari Bashi, whom I heard most recently on the WNYC public radio Brian Lehrer Show.  She is an Israeli-American graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School who is the director and founder of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that advocates for freedom of movement for the people of Gaza.

It is clear from listening to her that she knows what she's talking about and is also fully aware of Israel's security needs regarding Gaza; one has to wonder with her at the arbitrariness of the rules enforced by Israel to restrict the movement of ordinary Gazans to the West Bank and elsewhere. (This links to an online discussion, including some difference of opinion with Noam Chomsky.)
 

In October's Israel Symposium, we met Gisha's director of international relations, Tania Hary, also a remarkably articulate and aware Israeli-American.  Gisha is a non-violent force for a future of peace and normal relations with the Palestinians.  On a memorable evening at a Tel Aviv restaurant, we met Ms. Hary and three other impressive representatives of Israeli NGOs, B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Physicians for Human Rights - Israel and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

Israeli Left Celebrates while Gov't. Retaliates

Building upon the Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN, our friends in the Meretz party have just announced a "Four Point Plan" for peace.  The wording is somewhat awkward in English, but it involves a replacement of the Oslo framework by state-to-state relations between Israel and Palestine, a one-year timeframe for negotiating a final-status agreement, a four-year limit on fully implementing that agreement, and mechanisms to immediately engage with the Saudi/Arab League peace initiative by involving regional powers (including the Arab League) in negotiations for a regional peace.  This five-year horizon will include Israel freezing construction in the settlements, releasing prisoners and dismantling checkpoints (with these measures heavily front-loaded in the first year).  

And Hillel Schenker wrote about a rally in Tel Aviv that celebrated the UN vote in favor of Palestinian statehood.  He brings to mind:

"the famous recording of the UN General Assembly vote back on November 29th, 1947, the acceptance of UNGA Resolution 181, the Partition Plan.   And we all remember the roll-call – the United States – Yes, the Soviet Union – Yes….

There was a sense of excitement ... with large green signs saying 'Israel – Yes!' and Israeli and Palestinian flags waving in the air."

Photo courtesy of Uri Zaki and Yael Jacobson-Zieff

Some of us in New York showed our support for Palestinian statehood last week with this same “Israel: Yes!” banner, meant to remind people of the historic UN vote for Israel exactly 65 years before.  ("Meretz: the Left of Israel" is written in Hebrew.)

Two people we met on the Partners' Israel Symposium this past October, figure in a NY Times news article on newly announced settlement expansion in the vicinity of Jerusalem.  Hagit Ofran was our guide, from Peace Now, on a tour of the Gush Etzion and Hebron settlements; Dani Dayan spoke with us one day in Tel Aviv, representing the pro-settler view:

Baskin: Bad Speeches at UN Set Stage for Worse

I know Gershon Baskin as an optimist.  I sat next to him in a room full of pessimists who were veering towards "it's the end of the two-state solution" and Gershon, almost alone, came up with an optimistic view.  The following piece is so heavy that it dragged me down as I read, but in the end, the indefatigable Gershon says it's not too late if both sides come to their senses, but finally, and let us not forget it, he is warning all of us.  Violence is coming down the line.  -- Lilly

Encountering Peace: The stage is set for the final act

By GERSHON BASKIN

We have bought into the myths that they have woven together to justify our inability to grasp at opportunities for real change and breakthroughs to peace.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech at the UN was a bad one. I could explain that he was speaking to his own public after a war in which Palestinians were killed, and his people were angry. I could point out that throughout the world experts noted that the one real loser of the Gaza war was Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

It is also noteworthy that the Palestinian leader was backed into the corner of going to the United Nations with no apparent other choice, and that not doing so would have been the final death blow to his own political career. All of this is true, but Abbas could have still used the international podium for a different kind of speech that would have addressed the Israeli public positively and would have scored a lot more points for the cause of Palestine.

'Why I'm Voting Meretz'

Ellis Shuman

Interesting piece ("Why I’m Voting Meretz") by Ellis Shuman, that just appeared in The Times of Israel:

.... Today’s government offers no hope. While nodding their acceptance of a two-state solution, our leaders have put the Palestinian problem on the back burner, where it will only serve to boil up and explode in the next round of violence. Our leaders call for a return to the negotiations table, but have no intentions of actually negotiating. They say there should be no preconditions for talks, but they set Israel’s preconditions in stone every day. ...
Meretz was the only Zionist party that called on Israel to vote in favor of the Palestinian request to upgrade their status at the United Nations. A Palestinian state is in Israel’s interest. ...
The [other] parties on the left [and center] are led by failed politicians and television stars, more interested in their egos than in uniting in the national interest. ...
Only Meretz has stayed true to its principles, no matter how popular or unpopular they may be. Peace with the Palestinians. Human rights. Religious freedom. Protecting the environment. ...

Nostalgia for Shulamit Aloni and Scenario for Meretz

Benn

Aluf Benn, chief editor of Haaretz, met with our Israel Symposium delegation in Tel Aviv, this past October.  I was impressed with his calm astute analysis, especially in his pointing out that if alienated Tel Avivians and suburban voters were to actually vote, along with Israeli Arabs who used to vote, the left/dovish bloc could return to power with a shift of a mere six seats. 

Livni

The election campaign has just become more complicated, however, with the reemergence of Tzipi Livni as head of a new party list called Hatenuah (the Movement).  It is currently polling at seven seats, but basically drawn from other centrist and center-left lists; Livni seems to have more or less obliterated prospects for Kadima and complicated life for Labor and Yair Lapid.  But there's also something of a challenge for Meretz here, because even though (unlike Meretz) Livni does not take a progressive stand on economic and social issues, Meretz is no longer the only party daring to advocate moving forward on peace with the Palestinians.  (In another shakeout, Ehud Barak has again retired from politics, giving up on his "Independence party" splitoff from Labor, now even more certain than Kadima to be headed for oblivion.)

In an article quoted from below, Aluf Benn writes nostalgically of one-time Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni, the first of three equal leaders of Meretz when as a bloc of three political parties in 1992 (not yet coalesced into one), it was at the height of its influence with 10% of the seats in the Knesset.  He also writes hopefully of Meretz today (but prior to Livni's reentry into politics):