I thoroughly applauded Recip Erdogan in taking to task Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos in January over operation Cast Lead (the Israeli assault on Gaza), so why have I recently started calling myself a Zionist? Let me explain.
I started taking an interest in politics just as Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, which immediately led to the horrific massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps by Israel’s Phalangist militia allies while the Israeli Defence Forces were in control of the camps, but led ontotheir occupation of South Lebanon, and from there to the evolution of Hezbollah. Quite naturally this made me quite sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and critical of the Israeli occupation in particular and Israeli militarism in general.
People from my parents generation tend to see things quite differently, having witnessed the Arab nationalists ganging up on Israel in the 1967 war. Britons have always had a fairly ambivalent relationship to the competing claims of Arabs and Jews—Lawrence of Arabia and all that—leading to some perfidious behaviour with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with the French, entering into an agreement with the Arabs to secure their in the war, and Lloyd George subsequently making contradictory arrangements with the Zionists the Balfour Declaration.
Whatever about the history of the situation, it is pretty clear that Israeli militarism has started to become spectacularly counter-productive. Not only are the Israelis eroding their tremendous soft capital base, and creating a crisis of legitimacy for themselves, but they are starting to lose the military edge so necessary to sustain their iron fist policy. It is not widely appreciated, but one of the reasons Israel is so unsettled at the moment is that Hezbollah, without any armour or air support, to their own and everybody else’s surprise, comprehensively spanked the IDF in the Summer of 2006. This was almost certainly a factor in bringing about Cast Lead which achieved nothing, except this kind of amazing intervention from Israel’s longest and closest friends.
The consequences are still unwinding with the unravelling of relations with Turkey (see the above Mosaic Intelligence Report, and Stephen Walt’s analysis).
Which brings me to Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss Nation article charting the rise of J Street and the trend for Jews, like Kaufman above, to start criticizing Israel. The context is the pressing need to establish a Palestinian state before it is too late and Israel is forced to incorporate the stateless citizens of the occupied territories into Israel, which, given the demographics, is bound to entail some variant of Apartheid—that or something even uglier, any of which is bound to undermine Israel’s legitimacy.
One of the new Jewish bloggers leading the new candour identified in the Nation article is Matt Yglesias who was pondering Israel’s disorienting lurch to the right, just as the US is going in the opposite direction, and in marked contrast to when Yglesias’s political consciousness was being formed in the 1990s when Yitzak Rabin was pushing for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians. Indeed, as Uri Avnery notes, along with a previous Mosaic Intelligence Report, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, is in serious trouble after the Israelis leaned on him to withdraw his request to refer the Goldstone Report into operation Cast Lead to the UN security council. As Avnery notes this was much to Hamas’s advantage and this was no accident, the Netanyahu government clearly determined to sabotage any attempts to force them into a resolution of their conflict with the Palestinians.
Is peace cause lost? I think it may not be (quite) as gloomy as it looks. Firstly, the current Israeli administration is on a fantastically destructive course that the Israelis, as unsettled as they are, can’t be long noticing. They may be congratulating themselves on the humiliation of Obama over settlements and the crushing of Abbas but Obama is patient and keeps his eye on the long view. The Netanyahu government will have to either make some radical changes in their approach or make way for Kadima. The situation is reminiscent of that in Northern Ireland where the outside players tried, vainly, to prop up the moderates. It wasn’t until Ian Paiseley’s DUP were allowed to settle matters with Sin Fein that the political process in Northern Ireland properly settled down and I find it more than plausible that Marwan Boughati will fairly soon be exchanged for Gillad Shalit, perhaps clearing the way for Boughati to negotiate with the Israeli government (maybe led by Kadima) a settlement on behalf of Fatah and Hamas.
So how is this relevant to my Zionism? I feel compelled to accept this label because, if you are in favour of Jewish state then the logic of the situation dictates support for a Palestinian state. This central insight the ultra-Zionists seem incapable of grasping, but the argument works in reverse.In short anyone supporting Israel or a Palestinian state must support a two state solution, and therefore both states.
I was always a nominal supporter of Israel in this sense, but the new Zionist candour makes me comfortable with the Zionist label. And I think that has led on to a real openness about the situation and rounded appreciation of everyone’s claims.
There is nothing that I as an outsider can do to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians—only they can do that. But there can be little doubt that the schism in the world beyond Israel and the occupied territories has helped to keep the situation stuck for so long. I think the constant, misguided and often subtle attacks on the legitimacy of Israel by the supporters of the Palestinian cause has made Zionists unhappy to break cover and criticize Israeli actions. And the lack of such criticism reinforces the tendency of Palestinian supporters to be negligent or half-hearted in their acknowledgement of Israel’s legitimate security concerns. (Of course Israel isn’t helping by refusing to define her borders and continuing the occupation.) The new candour will be critical in creating the political space President Obama needs to press the parties of the dispute to do what is in their own and everybody else’s best interests. It is all in the mind and the change of heart of those of us outside the situation may be a critical first step in facilitating ultimate reconciliation.
It may all be in the mind, but reality has a vote too. From the comment thread on Yglesias’s article.
I just returned from a month in Israel (the advantages of being retired). Since I have dual passports and 35 relatives living in the settlements, I freely travel all over the West Bank. I can assure you the amount of building going on is SIGNIFICANTLY more than finishing off the 3000 units already started. Existing settlements beyond the Security barrier are establishing “new neighborhoods” sometimes a kilometer or 2 away from the existing settlement. Calling it a neighborhood avoids the stigma of a new settlement but it’s really the same thing. These are going up all over the place.
For example there is building east of Mevo Dotan with road building equipment to build a road to the Israeli miltary base east of Qabatiya and thus linking up with Kaddim. This would put the entire Jenin area into it’s own canton. New hilltop neighborhoods are going up between Shavey Shomeron and Elon Moreh cutting of Nablus on it’s north side. Ariel and the land to the east are being populated to link up with Eli and Shilo and thus cutting off Nablus from the southern west bank.
Talmon, Dolev, Bet El and Ofra are being linked cutting off Ramallah. Everywhere you look, the “reservation” plan is being implemented. That is Likud’s objective and I’ve heard Ze’ev Boim who was Housing Minister under Kadima even use that word.
SLC, the purpose behind this rant is to illustrate there is no time to waste in order to implement a two state solution. In 3-5 years the “reservation” concept will come to fruition and that will be a disaster to Israel.
Why I am a Zionist
I thoroughly applauded Recip Erdogan in taking to task Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos in January over operation Cast Lead (the Israeli assault on Gaza), so why have I recently started calling myself a Zionist? Let me explain.
I started taking an interest in politics just as Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, which immediately led to the horrific massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps by Israel’s Phalangist militia allies while the Israeli Defence Forces were in control of the camps, but led ontotheir occupation of South Lebanon, and from there to the evolution of Hezbollah. Quite naturally this made me quite sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and critical of the Israeli occupation in particular and Israeli militarism in general.
People from my parents generation tend to see things quite differently, having witnessed the Arab nationalists ganging up on Israel in the 1967 war. Britons have always had a fairly ambivalent relationship to the competing claims of Arabs and Jews—Lawrence of Arabia and all that—leading to some perfidious behaviour with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with the French, entering into an agreement with the Arabs to secure their in the war, and Lloyd George subsequently making contradictory arrangements with the Zionists the Balfour Declaration.
Whatever about the history of the situation, it is pretty clear that Israeli militarism has started to become spectacularly counter-productive. Not only are the Israelis eroding their tremendous soft capital base, and creating a crisis of legitimacy for themselves, but they are starting to lose the military edge so necessary to sustain their iron fist policy. It is not widely appreciated, but one of the reasons Israel is so unsettled at the moment is that Hezbollah, without any armour or air support, to their own and everybody else’s surprise, comprehensively spanked the IDF in the Summer of 2006. This was almost certainly a factor in bringing about Cast Lead which achieved nothing, except this kind of amazing intervention from Israel’s longest and closest friends.
The consequences are still unwinding with the unravelling of relations with Turkey (see the above Mosaic Intelligence Report, and Stephen Walt’s analysis).
Which brings me to Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss Nation article charting the rise of J Street and the trend for Jews, like Kaufman above, to start criticizing Israel. The context is the pressing need to establish a Palestinian state before it is too late and Israel is forced to incorporate the stateless citizens of the occupied territories into Israel, which, given the demographics, is bound to entail some variant of Apartheid—that or something even uglier, any of which is bound to undermine Israel’s legitimacy.
One of the new Jewish bloggers leading the new candour identified in the Nation article is Matt Yglesias who was pondering Israel’s disorienting lurch to the right, just as the US is going in the opposite direction, and in marked contrast to when Yglesias’s political consciousness was being formed in the 1990s when Yitzak Rabin was pushing for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians. Indeed, as Uri Avnery notes, along with a previous Mosaic Intelligence Report, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, is in serious trouble after the Israelis leaned on him to withdraw his request to refer the Goldstone Report into operation Cast Lead to the UN security council. As Avnery notes this was much to Hamas’s advantage and this was no accident, the Netanyahu government clearly determined to sabotage any attempts to force them into a resolution of their conflict with the Palestinians.
Is peace cause lost? I think it may not be (quite) as gloomy as it looks. Firstly, the current Israeli administration is on a fantastically destructive course that the Israelis, as unsettled as they are, can’t be long noticing. They may be congratulating themselves on the humiliation of Obama over settlements and the crushing of Abbas but Obama is patient and keeps his eye on the long view. The Netanyahu government will have to either make some radical changes in their approach or make way for Kadima. The situation is reminiscent of that in Northern Ireland where the outside players tried, vainly, to prop up the moderates. It wasn’t until Ian Paiseley’s DUP were allowed to settle matters with Sin Fein that the political process in Northern Ireland properly settled down and I find it more than plausible that Marwan Boughati will fairly soon be exchanged for Gillad Shalit, perhaps clearing the way for Boughati to negotiate with the Israeli government (maybe led by Kadima) a settlement on behalf of Fatah and Hamas.
So how is this relevant to my Zionism? I feel compelled to accept this label because, if you are in favour of Jewish state then the logic of the situation dictates support for a Palestinian state. This central insight the ultra-Zionists seem incapable of grasping, but the argument works in reverse.In short anyone supporting Israel or a Palestinian state must support a two state solution, and therefore both states.
I was always a nominal supporter of Israel in this sense, but the new Zionist candour makes me comfortable with the Zionist label. And I think that has led on to a real openness about the situation and rounded appreciation of everyone’s claims.
There is nothing that I as an outsider can do to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians—only they can do that. But there can be little doubt that the schism in the world beyond Israel and the occupied territories has helped to keep the situation stuck for so long. I think the constant, misguided and often subtle attacks on the legitimacy of Israel by the supporters of the Palestinian cause has made Zionists unhappy to break cover and criticize Israeli actions. And the lack of such criticism reinforces the tendency of Palestinian supporters to be negligent or half-hearted in their acknowledgement of Israel’s legitimate security concerns. (Of course Israel isn’t helping by refusing to define her borders and continuing the occupation.) The new candour will be critical in creating the political space President Obama needs to press the parties of the dispute to do what is in their own and everybody else’s best interests. It is all in the mind and the change of heart of those of us outside the situation may be a critical first step in facilitating ultimate reconciliation.
It may all be in the mind, but reality has a vote too. From the comment thread on Yglesias’s article.
It sounds all too plausible. No time to waste.