by Mitchell Plitnick
It is clear that US citizens need to start asking what exactly we are supporting in Israel. The general belief and political rhetoric tell us that the US is, through military aid and diplomatic support, protecting Israel’s very existence, that is, the lives of millions of Jews whose history [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It is clear that US citizens need to start asking what exactly we are supporting in Israel. The general belief and political rhetoric tell us that the US is, through military aid and diplomatic support, protecting Israel’s very existence, that is, the lives of millions of Jews whose history is so full of episodes where we were the victims of violence, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. But in recent years, the story of Israel as a Jewish state has been dictated by demographics and questions of apartheid. So when we support Israel, are we protecting a long-besieged minority and a US ally or are we supporting the kinds of discrimination that are anathema to most of the world?
A disturbing answer to this question was provided by former US President Bill Clinton in his remarks at the celebration of Israeli President Shimon Peres’ 90th birthday: “Is it really okay with you if Israel has a majority of its people living within your territory who are not now, and never will be, allowed to vote?” Clinton asked. “If it is, can you say with a straight face that you’ll be a democracy? If you let them vote, can you live with not being a Jewish state? And if you can’t live with one of those things, then you are left with trying to cobble together some theory of a two-state solution.”
Clinton’s words are a rather clear summation of both the US and Israeli approach to the Israeli occupation, at least among those who are desperately clinging to the long-dead Oslo Process. Those words carry some shocking modes of thought; they also demonstrate very clearly why Israel has gotten more intransigent and the United States ever more feckless over the years.
Yousef Munayyer, writing in the Daily Beast, takes on the broadest and most important point that Clinton’s disturbing words raise. “Palestinian freedom should not be framed as Israel’s choice,” Munayyer wrote. “Rather, as the occupier of Palestinian territory and millions of stateless Palestinians, this is Israel’s obligation, an American obligation and an international obligation. It’s about time we start talking about it this way.”
Some may argue that Clinton was addressing an Israeli audience and it is important to convince Israel that freeing the Palestinians is in their own interest. Indeed, any pragmatic or even just thoughtful approach to the politics of this conflict needs to incorporate that point. But it cannot stand alone or even be the thrust of the reasoning. As Munayyer points out, this is about rights. Palestinians deserve the same rights, to the fullest, that Israelis enjoy.
But the obsession with the Jewish majority reaches chilling heights in Clinton’s words. What difference does it make whether the Palestinians — who are dominated by Israel and have not only no right to vote but whose most basic rights are granted only at the whim of the Israeli government or Civil Administration — are a majority or not? Does it really matter if Palestinians are less than half the population under Israeli control? Would we tolerate that in any other context?
By Clinton’s reasoning, slavery in the United States never would have ended, or certainly Jim Crow laws would not have been abolished, as African Americans have never been a majority here. In one way, this is the trap of the apartheid argument, with its inevitable comparisons to South Africa, where a white minority had a democracy for themselves while denying the rights of citizenship to a much larger black majority.
But ultimately, it was not the demographics that undermined the Apartheid regime in South Africa; it was the more basic principles of justice. Constitutions in democratic societies routinely have provisions or amendments to prevent a “tyranny of the majority.” This is to ensure that all citizens who live under the roof of the government have equal rights. If Israel wants to be an exception to that rule, it may be able to do so for some time longer. But, aside from the political pressure applied by Israel’s lobby in the United States, why should the United States support such a regime? Supporting that system has nothing to do with either Israeli security or US geo-political interests. Of course, we have long supported many dictatorships, but never with the loving embrace, passion and massive devotion of resources that we devote to Israel.
It is only through the ignorance, or willful blindness, of most US citizens and leaders that the sort of thinking Clinton reflected could possibly take root. As Munayyer said, “Palestinian rights are reduced to an Israeli prerogative.” This sort of thinking is reflected throughout US discourse on the subject, including those who oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence, as Clinton does.
Some would argue that the occupation is an outgrowth of Israel’s security situation, but that Palestinian citizens of Israel, while perhaps facing some discrimination, have full legal rights and Israelis are simply battling the same issues of bigotry that we see in the US and Europe. Current events, however, expose the falsity of that argument.
On Tuesday, the Knesset passed a first reading of a bill that would, if it eventually becomes law, summarily evict tens of thousands of Israeli Bedouin from their homes and lands. The Bedouin in the Negev desert live in villages, many which are classified as “unrecognized” and therefore have few or no basic services, such as plumbing, electricity and sanitation. They have lived on these lands for generations, most pre-dating Israel’s existence.
Let me be clear: these are Israeli citizens, and they are being stripped of what little they have so that their government can use their land. One concurrent plan is for new Jewish communities to be built in some measure on the lands the Bedouin would be evicted from.
Apparently, for Bill Clinton, since these Bedouin and Palestinians living under occupation do not yet constitute a demographic majority, this sort of treatment, while perhaps distasteful, is something the US can live with. It’s long past time that the rest of us in the United States, and Europe as well, asked if we can also live with our countries supporting this sort of thing. This is not about Israeli military imperatives, Jewish safety, or whether one supports a one- or two-state solution. This is a basic question of universal rights. Can we really live with being complicit in the denial of such rights to millions of people?
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
As President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel approaches, one senses desperation from the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s scheduled stop in the West Bank has all the trappings of an empty gesture masking the real goal of creating coordination between the President and Israeli [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
As President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel approaches, one senses desperation from the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s scheduled stop in the West Bank has all the trappings of an empty gesture masking the real goal of creating coordination between the President and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issues of Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, protests in the West Bank are spreading as Palestinian hunger strikers inspire defiance against Israel’s ongoing occupation.
In that context, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seriously trying to convince Obama to focus attention back on the question of Palestine and the occupation. Abbas’ advisor Muhammad Ashtiya told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz on Monday that the PA is trying to get Obama to jumpstart the peace process by putting forth a formula for talks that “…will guarantee the end of the occupation in the territories of ’67.” Such a formula would make it unrealistic to talk “…while the Israeli government continues to build settlements and establish facts on the ground that will thwart a future agreement.”
In other words, the Palestinians would drop their (entirely reasonable) “preconditions” in favor of the US setting them. It’s hard to see Obama doing this to say the least. But Ashtiya is right in saying this is the only way for talks to resume. That’s why they won’t.
The very next day, US Secretary of State John Kerry revealed the itinerary for his first trip overseas in his new job. The Middle East leg will include Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, but not Israel. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland explained that Kerry did not want to disrupt Netanyahu’s coalition-building process. While that may be true, an Obama Administration that would even consider the sort of steps the PA is currently suggesting would want to push Netanyahu toward a coalition that would accept a US framework. Any notion that Obama was considering a step like that at this time is contradicted by Kerry’s demurral.
Perhaps at some point later in his second term Obama will try to fix the mess we call the Israel-Palestine conflict. But right now the task involves too many pitfalls and too few promises. Obama knows Netanyahu will buck any serious effort at US mediation, just as he knows that former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni taking the reins of talks with the Palestinians is nothing more than window dressing. Netanyahu has some incentive to appear more reasonable than he has for the past four years, but very little to actually try to forge a deal with the Palestinians. The Israeli public is nervous about the status quo, but that has more to do with their view that their government is isolating them from the rest of the world through brash statements and provocative actions than any sense of urgency to end the occupation.
Obama knows that Congress will revolt at the behest of AIPAC at any perceived pressure on Israel. With major battles over taxes and budget cuts looming, nuclear issues with Iran and now North Korea coming back to the fore and a Republican contingent determined to undermine his every move, Obama is not going to risk aggravating the Democrats in Congress that he absolutely must keep in line.
So Abbas is shouting into the wind here. The same sense of calm that keeps Israelis comfortable enough to refrain from pushing their government toward a resolution of the conflict also makes contemporary crises like Syria and the disposition of Hezbollah in Lebanon seem far more urgent. Yet this too, like Iran, is a bone of contention with congressional Republicans. Obama has no wish to increase his foreign policy difficulties.
Abbas’ options are becoming very limited. Israel has quietly and slowly been easing the siege on Gaza and while the situation there remains grim, there can be little doubt that even incremental improvements (which have largely consisted of some small imports of building materials and considerably larger imports of Israeli products) strengthen Hamas’ hand. As Palestinian reconciliation remains far off, Abbas is feeling domestic pressure from his political rivals. Add to that increasing protests, hunger strikers and the continuing, gradual growth of the global Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement (BDS), and Abbas is getting boxed in. Without some opening which only Obama can create, the credibility of Abbas’ program of negotiating with and reassuring Israel is dwindling to zero.
The Palestinians need the United States to bring forth a plan — Abbas and Ashtiya are not wrong about that. But Obama is not going to do that and risk alienating many in his own party unless it turns into something Israel wants. Netanyahu obviously doesn’t want it, and it’s not immediately apparent what Israeli leader would. But if the Palestinians — through non-violent but firm means such as the International Criminal Court, the BDS movement and continued appeals to Europe and Arab and Muslim countries that have relations with Israel — can increase pressure and make Israel’s populace less comfortable with the status quo, perhaps Israel will put forth a new leader with a peace mandate along the lines of that which they gave to Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak.
In that context, a president like Obama might have more options. But as it stands now, the Palestinian strategy should be based on the US being an obstacle, not a help.
Photo: President Barack Obama watches as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (right) shake hands at a trilateral meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, N.Y, Sept. 22, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)
]]>