The possibility of a binational Israel

Jeff Goldberg posted today about an Israeli study that encouraged treating the West Bank like the rest of Israel and opening it all up to Israeli settlement. Goldberg assumes that this will lead to the extension of citizenship to the Palestinians and the end of Israel as a Jewish democracy. He believes, as I have noted before, that the West Bank and Gaza should form a Palestinian state in order to preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. He likes to say that the settlers are the vanguard of a binational Israel. He concludes:

This would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy, but the right-wing in Israel seems more enamored of land-ownership than it does of such antiquated notions as, you know, Zionism.

Of course, you don’t hear too many voices on the right in Israel clamoring to extend full Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians. The right-wing wants the land, but not the people. What the right doesn’t understand is that this arrangement would be a non-starter, for political and moral reasons. Then again, the right doesn’t understand very much, so why would it understand this?

In his next post, in response to a reminder from another journalist, he linked to this two-year -old interview with the Speaker of the Israeli Parliament, Reuven Rivlin, who said that a Jewish-Palestinian state could work with real Palestinian participation. Perhaps The article quotes Rivlin’s striking words: “‘I would prefer for the Palestinians to be citizens of this country,’ he said, ‘rather than divide the land.’” He goes on to talk about how it might work.

The contrast between Goldberg’s pessimism and Rivlin’s optimism about this kind of arrangement is remarkable. In part, it’s about what’s more important: a nationalist (and mainly secular) concept of Zionism or access to the land. Goldberg is observant himself, in the tradition of Reform Judaism I believe, but I think it is fair to characterize his Zionism as more nationalist (connecting the Jewish people with their historic home) rather than religious.

On loving your roots

John Kass recently took a trip to Greece and Turkey and wrote a series of columns about it. His father immigrated from Greece from a village called Rizes (which means “roots”) in the center of the Peloponnesus. At the end of his column describing his visit to Rizes, he wrote:

I asked my Thea Tula, the only one of my father’s siblings who remained in Greece, for the reason Rizes is so beautiful.

“Because your father was born here, and your grandfathers and their grandfathers and their grandfathers,” she said. “That is why it is beautiful. Do you understand me?”

And like that, it was on me again, pressing my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

“Ianni, you understand?”

Yes, Thea, I understand.

It reminded me a bit of Jeff Goldberg’s observation about the attachment of Israelis and Arabs to their land.

“The White Savior Industrial Complex”

My brother shared this article by novelist Teju Cole on Facebook. It was a further reflection on a series of tweets (and the reaction to them) by Cole about the internet film KONY 2012. Jeff Goldberg gave some examples of the complex at work here.

Some of the tweets by Cole:

3- The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.

4- This world exists simply to satisfy the needs—including, importantly, the sentimental needs—of white people and Oprah.

5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.

Here’s one extended quote:

Let me draw into this discussion an example from an African country I know very well. Earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians took to their country’s streets to protest the government’s decision to remove a subsidy on petrol. This subsidy was widely seen as one of the few blessings of the country’s otherwise catastrophic oil wealth. But what made these protests so heartening is that they were about more than the subsidy removal. Nigeria has one of the most corrupt governments in the world and protesters clearly demanded that something be done about this. The protests went on for days, at considerable personal risk to the protesters. Several young people were shot dead, and the movement was eventually doused when union leaders capitulated and the army deployed on the streets. The movement did not “succeed” in conventional terms. But something important had changed in the political consciousness of the Nigerian populace. For me and for a number of people I know, the protests gave us an opportunity to be proud of Nigeria, many of us for the first time in our lives.

This is not the sort of story that is easy to summarize in an article, much less make a viral video about. After all, there is no simple demand to be made and — since corruption is endemic — no single villain to topple. There is certainly no “bridge character,” Kristof’s euphemism for white saviors in Third World narratives who make the story more palatable to American viewers. And yet, the story of Nigeria’s protest movement is one of the most important from sub-Saharan Africa so far this year. Men and women, of all classes and ages, stood up for what they felt was right; they marched peacefully; they defended each other, and gave each other food and drink; Christians stood guard while Muslims prayed and vice-versa; and they spoke without fear to their leaders about the kind of country they wanted to see. All of it happened with no cool American 20-something heroes in sight.

Joseph Kony is no longer in Uganda and he is no longer the threat he was, but he is a convenient villain for those who need a convenient villain. What Africa needs more pressingly than Kony’s indictment is more equitable civil society, more robust democracy, and a fairer system of justice. This is the scaffolding from which infrastructure, security, healthcare, and education can be built. How do we encourage voices like those of the Nigerian masses who marched this January, or those who are engaged in the struggle to develop Ugandan democracy?

I don’t agree with everything in the article (even that protesting to maintain oil subsidies is necessarily  the wisest course of action), but it’s an interesting read.

What the Israeli settlers have accomplished

Jeff Goldberg writes:

The settlement movement, its supporters, and its apologists (in Israel and in America) have successfully conflated support for their movement with support for Israel and for Zionism itself. They have created a reality in which criticism of the settlement movement has come to equal criticism of Israel. You see this at the AIPAC convention, where no speaker dared suggest that the settlements are, in fact, the vanguard of Israel’s dissolution, rather than the vanguard of Zionism. (I explain why the settlements could lead to the end of Israel here.)

If you read his whole post, you’ll notice that Goldberg writes that “the settlements should be fought as if there was no such thing as anti-Zionism, and anti-Zionism should be fought as if there were no such thing as the settlements.” For the sake of context, this is a riff on prominent Zionist (and eventual first prime minister of Israel) David Ben Gurion’s famous dictum during World War II regarding the White Paper of 1939 which called for the creation of a shared Jewish and Arab state in the British mandate of Palestine. Ben Gurion said that “we must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Source for Ben Gurion quote: Goldschmidt and Davidson, A Concise History of the Middle East, 9th edition, p. 286.

U.S. policy in the “Arab Spring”

Jeff Goldberg’s new article in The Atlantic Monthly reports on the emerging Middle East policy of the Obama administration. He writes, and recommends, that this policy is based on a balance of the promotion of democracy and U.S. interests in containing Iran and preserving access to oil (a similar “values and interests” formula that Hussein Ibish has described and commended):

In these early days of the Arab revolt, President Obama and his administration, already busy with other wars, are struggling for clarity. At a time when policy makers are wrestling with what might be called, in a nod to the president, the fierce incoherence of now, the administration has to bring about the marginalization of anti-modern, anti-Western, Islamist-oriented political parties, while not seeming to be working toward that goal. It has to continually decide which governments of the Middle East deserve the support of the United States and which deserve abandonment. This question points up a core contradiction of the moment: at the same time America is working for permanent and dramatic democratic change in certain republics of the Middle East, it has, 235 years after freeing itself from the rule of a despotic king, gone into the monarchy-maintenance business, propping up kings, emirs, and sheikhs who, though they may be as venal as Ben Ali, Qaddafi, and Mubarak, have oil the West needs, and who serve as a counterbalance to the greatest threat facing the U.S. in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Goldberg’s recommended approach shows his assumption that we must continue to have a strong presence in the Middle East as well as the challenges posed by when we try to maintain the Pax Americana:

Creating an overarching doctrine suitable for the moment is an almost impossible task, particularly during a crisis that demands from American policy makers analytical humility, doctrinal plasticity, and a tolerance for contradiction. Analytical humility is called for because the trajectories of the Middle East’s revolutions are still difficult to discern, and because it is not yet clear that tyranny is, in fact, in permanent eclipse. Doctrinal plasticity, which in a less value-neutral way could be called hypocrisy, is a necessity because, while it is true that President Obama, to the surprise of many, has shown himself to be more of a liberal interventionist than a cold-eyed realist, it is also true that America retains fixed, and vital, interests across the Middle East, interests that have already forced America to side with monarchs over the masses they rule. And a tolerance for contradiction is vital not only because America’s democratically elected government is scrambling to keep monarchs on their thrones, but because people across the Middle East are embracing American ideals—freedom of speech, financial transparency, leaders who are chosen by the people and are accountable to them—while at the same time distancing themselves from America itself, and rejecting American assumptions about what freedom is meant to look like.

A new Saudi foreign policy

Nawaf Obaid writes:

A tectonic shift has occurred in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Despite significant pressure from the Obama administration to remain on the sidelines, Saudi leaders sent troops into Manama in March to defend Bahrain’s monarchy and quell the unrest that has shaken that country since February. For more than 60 years, Saudi Arabia has been bound by an unwritten bargain: oil for security. Riyadh has often protested but ultimately acquiesced to what it saw as misguided U.S. policies. But American missteps in the region since Sept. 11, an ill-conceived response to the Arab protest movements and an unconscionable refusal to hold Israel accountable for its illegal settlement building have brought this arrangement to an end. As the Saudis recalibrate the partnership, Riyadh intends to pursue a much more assertive foreign policy, at times conflicting with American interests.

The backdrop for this change are the rise of Iranian meddling in the region and the counterproductive policies that the United States has pursued here since Sept. 11. The most significant blunder may have been the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in enormous loss of life and provided Iran an opening to expand its sphere of influence. For years, Iran’s leadership has aimed to foment discord while furthering its geopolitical ambitions. Tehran has long funded Hamas and Hezbollah; recently, its scope of attempted interference has broadened to include the affairs of Arab states from Yemen to Morocco. This month the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi, harshly criticized Riyadh over its intervention in Bahrain, claiming this act would spark massive domestic uprisings.

Obaid describes Saudi priorities: stable Arab monarchies (see some background here on the expansion of the Gulf Cooperation Council), “orderly transition” in Yemen and Syria (if necessary), strong opposition to the Iranian-aligned Maliki government in Iraq, restricting Iranian influence in Lebanon and Syria, and a “just settlement” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the plan proposed by the Saudi king (when he was crown prince) in 2002. The kingdom will also increase its military capabilities to combat Iran and international terrorists. Obaid concludes:

Saudi Arabia has the will and the means to meet its expanded global responsibilities. In some issues, such as counterterrorism and efforts to fight money laundering, the Saudis will continue to be a strong U.S. partner. In areas in which Saudi national security or strategic interests are at stake, the kingdom will pursue its own agenda. With Iran working tirelessly to dominate the region, the Muslim Brotherhood rising in Egypt and unrest on nearly every border, there is simply too much at stake for the kingdom to rely on a security policy written in Washington, which has backfired more often than not and spread instability. The special relationship may never be the same, but from this transformation a more stable and secure Middle East can be born.

Obaid certainly likes to praise the stability and virtue of the Saudi regime. The op-ed excerpted above includes a link to another op-ed which explains the reasons for this stability.

Hat tip: a gleeful Jeff Goldberg, who asks “Does This Mean We Won’t Have to Save Saudi Arabia Anymore?” and gives the improved Saudi military “at least six hours” in a serious contest with the Iranian military.

Egypt’s unrest and the Arab-Israeli conflict

Jeff Goldberg linked to a New York Times opinion piece by Yossi Klein Halevi who writes that many Israelis fear that the demonstrations will result in exchanging the stability of Hosni Mubarak for the aggression of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Halevi writes that the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt neutralized the danger of an attack on Israel by the Arab states, which makes sense. Egypt provided the backbone of the failed wars of the Arab states against Israel. I’ve read different versions of the saying that different Arab groups wanted to fight Israel to the last Egyptian soldier. Until the treaty with Egypt, Israel’s allies in the region, Iran and Turkey, had come from outside the Arab world. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the recent tensions with Turkey’s Islamist government changed this, but these developments have been mitigated by peace with Egypt. So you can see where the worry comes from.

Goldberg also corresponded with Elliott Abrams to get a comment on Israeli fears of an Islamist Egypt and included Abrams’ response, which was interesting:

The Israelis first of all do not believe in the universality of democracy.  They believe what many American “experts” did in, say, 1950–democracy was fine for us and Western Europe, but not for Latins (too much Catholic culture) and Asians (too much Confucianism).  They believe Arab culture does not permit democracy.

They see a danger in Mubarak’s fall, and they are right: we do not know who will take over now or in a year or two from now.  But this is at bottom a crazy reaction.  What they are afraid of is the Muslim Brotherhood, right?  Mubarak has ruled for THIRTY YEARS and leaves us a Brotherhood that is that powerful?  Isn’t that all the proof we need that dictatorship is not the way to fight the Brotherhood?  He crushed the moderate and centrist groups and left the Brothers with an open field.  He is to blame for the Brothers’ popularity and strength right now.  The sooner he goes the better.

I think that Abrams shows too much confidence in “the universality of democracy.” Western democracy emerged in a specific cultural context, and the reassurances that Abrams (and the Bush administration in which he served) gave about opening up the Middle East to democracy have been at least partially damaged by Hamas being elected in the Palestinian territories and what seems to be a fairly dysfunctional new Iraqi state. But Bush was right that we won’t really know the verdict on his policies for a long time. We simply have no idea how it will all turn out.

Rick Richman wrote about this same subject at Commentary’s blog Contentions. He distinguishes between a “achievement” in Iraq and a failed policy in the Palestinian territories. Earlier, former Bush administration official Peter Wehner, also writing at Contentions, noted this Washington Post editorial’s account of progress toward democracy and stability in Iraq in 2010. I think that Richman and Wehner are too optimistic about Iraq, which has had many ups and downs since 2003. For example, I saw in the Chicago Tribune today that Transparency International ranked Iraq fourth from the bottom in its 2010 rankings that measure perceived public corruption. But it’s important to look at the positive things that Richman and Wehner note as we try to sort everything out.

The two Ahmadinijads?

Jeff Goldberg points to an interesting article by Iranian-American Reza Aslan, which explores the possibility, raised by Wikileaks documents, that Ahmadinejad is a reformer rather than an advocate of oppression.

I can’t say that those things match up with anything that I’ve read about Ahmadinejad, but it’s fascinating to think about.  Goldberg rightly criticized Aslan’s very weak attempt to interpret Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel rhetoric in a less drastic way by listing a series of inflammatory quotes.  I wish that Goldberg had provided an evaluation of the rest of the article too.

Life in Jerusalem

Jeff Goldberg attended a Christmas Eve service at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem’s Old City and describes the welcome offered by the German Lutherans to Goldberg and other Jewish visitors here.  Unfortunately, that also seems to have meant that the proclamation of the gospel (“proselytizing”) was off-limits.

But the second paragraph of Goldberg’s post was more interesting to me as it describes how people of different religious and ethnic communities do tend to get along:

James Snyder, the director of the stunningly re-imagined and reinvigorated Israel Museum (which I will write about later) brought us to the service, and whispered to me — when I took note of all the various incongruities — that “the dirty little secret of Jerusalem is that it is a fully-functioning intercommunal city.”  I think this is true. Yes, there are terrifically difficult issues (not least of which is the seizing of several Arab homes by Jewish settlers eager to make their presence felt in Arab neighborhoods), but this city is so much more complicated than news accounts would suggest. Earlier yesterday, I took one of the junior (and under-the-weather) Goldblogs to a local medical clinic for a strep test. The clinic, called Terem, is well-known in Jerusalem in part because it was started by a physician named David Applebaum, who was killed in the September 9, 2003 terrorist bombing of a cafe in the Germany Colony neighborhood, along with his daughter Naava, who was scheduled to get married the next day. The physician who saw my son at Terem, like many of the clinic’s physicians, is an Arab from East Jerualem. In Terem, and at Hadassah Hospital, and the other hospitals in town, Jews treat Arabs, Arabs treat Jews, and no one thinks twice about it. No one who lives here, I mean. For visitors (even one, like myself, who once lived in Jerusalem), these sorts of commonplace facts of life — Germans praying in Hebrew, Arab physicians treating Jews in  a clinic founded by a terror victim, and on, and on — can be astonishing.  Merry Christmas.

Defining the Palestinian territories: the problem for Israel

In my last post, I looked at the problem from Palestinian writer Hussein Ibish’s point of view.  My friend Kevin had some insightful questions in the comments of that post that I did my best to respond to (as you can tell, I still have so much to learn about the Middle East).  In my response, I noted the tough problems that Israel faces in trying to come to a settlement with the Palestinians, and offered this post by Jeff Goldberg (an American Jew, liberal Zionist, and former Israeli army member).  I thought that I would also post briefly about it.  Goldberg writes about why Israelis are skeptical about the creation of a Palestinian state:

But about those Israeli doubts: For the typical Israeli (and again, I’m not talking about settlers, but about people who have, in the past, agreed in principle that the Palestinians should have an independent state) two events in particular have soured them on the chance for compromise. In 2000, the Israeli army pulled out of Lebanon. It was hoped that this pull-out would lead to peace on the northern border, but instead it led to rocket attacks by the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah. In 2005, Israel unilaterally pulled its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza. Again, rockets followed. The saving grace of these rockets attacks — both the Lebanon attacks and the Gaza attacks — was that the rockets did not reach the center of the country — Tel Aviv, as well as Israel’s only international airport, Ben-Gurion.

Now, of course, the peace process, such as it is, hinges in part on an Israeli willingness to withdraw from the West Bank, including the hills of the West Bank that overlook Tel Aviv, the airport, and the entire thickly-populated central region of the country. This withdrawal will not be happening anytime soon, because there is a high degree of certainty among Israelis that a withdrawal from the West Bank hills would be followed not by peaceful reconciliation, but, again, by rockets.  No Israeli wants to be a freier, a sucker, and right now the Israelis feel like suckers. Twice in ten years they’ve withdrawn from territory, and twice they’ve been hit by rockets. They are not doing this again, not until the politics of the Palestinians — and the politics of Iran — change dramatically.

Goldberg also summarizes the challenges that Israel faces: pressures from the Obama administration, which has a different view of how to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, the blockade of Gaza, those who don’t accept Israel’s legitimacy, the peace process with the Palestinians, and Israeli rule over the West Bank.  He puts it together much better than my brief summary does.  Check out his post (it’s not overly long) if this is a topic that interests you.