Once the two state solution is off the table, the international community is going to be confronted with the very real problem that there is a politically and economically repressed majority in Israel. They will effectively be governed without representation by a government willing to employ the most intrusive policies of any western democracy. Indeed, there will be a question if the term ‘democracy’ even applies to Israel any more.
Stephen Walt explains that there are three options as he sees it:
First, Israel could drive most or all of the 2.5 million Palestinians out of the West Bank by force, thereby preserving “greater Israel” as a Jewish state through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians would surely resist, and it would be a crime against humanity, conducted in full view of a horrified world. …
Second, Israel could retain control of the West Bank but allow the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected enclaves, while it controlled access in and out, their water supplies, and the airspace above them. … In short, the Palestinians would not get a viable state of their own and would not enjoy full political rights. This is the solution that many people — including Prime Minister Olmert — compare to the apartheid regime in South Africa. …
[Third,] … The Israeli government could maintain its physical control over “greater Israel” and grant the Palestinians full democratic rights within this territory. This option has been proposed by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. But there are formidable objections to this outcome: It would mean abandoning the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish state…
He then goes on and questions if we are ready with a plan B:
But if a two-state option is no longer feasible, it seems likely that the United States would come to favor this third choice. …
If the two-state solution dies, as seems increasingly likely, the United States is going to face a very awkward set of choices. That’s one reason why Obama and his team — as well as Israel’s friends in the United States — should move beyond paying lip-service to the idea of creating a Palestinian state and actually do something about it. But it’s hard to be optimistic that they will.
And while I’m at it, here’s one more heretical thought. Shouldn’t someone in the U.S. government start thinking about what our policy should be in the event that the two-state solution collapses?
Ezra wonders what the time frame could be:
I’d like the Israel hawks to tell me supports what’s wrong with Stephen Walt’s logic here. And if nothing is wrong with his logic, I’d be interested to know what their estimate is of the time frame at which point Palestinians decide any state they could get is not a state worth having due to settlement expansion and overcrowding, and they begin demanding the vote instead…
And Greenwald wonders about the potentially increasing cost of supporting Israel under these circumstances:
If, as it appears, the face Israel is now choosing for itself is that of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, then the cost to the United States of ongoing, one-sided support for Israel is going to skyrocket, and the need for serious change in U.S. policy towards Israel will be even more acute. It’s worth recalling that Barack Obama, when still seeking the Democratic nomination in February, 2008, said:
I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.
It will be vital to ensure that Obama actually meant that. Netanyahu’s pledge to allow the still-further expansion of West Bank settlements makes an already-distant two-state solution less viable still, and his explicit vow to keep the Golan Heights “forever” makes negotiations with Syria doomed from the start. He actually just objected that Israel’s destruction of huge parts of Gaza “did not go far enough.”
One Chinese curse is certain,… Israel (and by extension the U.S.) will be living in ‘interesting times’ for some time to come.
Kill a few Israeli civilians here, a few more there. Here a suicide bomb, there a Katysuha rocket. Gain political credit, and have a street party, for every successful attack.
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p>When the Israelis get pissed and try to stop these attacks, moon and mope for the cameras to demonstrate the unfairness of it all, and get political credit for “standing up” to the Israelis. Have all the European leaders in to cluck at Israel for not giving you sufficient motivation to stop aiming to kill civilians.
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p>If Israel tries to calm the situation by withdrawing, shoot as many rockets as possible until they get pissed and try to stop the attacks.
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p>Rinse, repeat.
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p>Israel ought to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state and then immediately declare war on such state for innumerable cassus belli, invade it, and behave straightforwardly as an occupying power of a conquered, hostile land with no functioning civil authority of any kind, as if in Germany in June 1945.
Have you ever considered, for one thing, that Israel’s actions over the years, from settlement expansion to it’s own state-sponsored terrorism have strengthened the hand of the hard-line Palestinians and undermined those it claims to want to be it’s negotiating partner. Israel is hardly the innocent victim that AIPAC would have you believe.
A little history, please.
It’s difficult to see how to move forward.
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p>CentralMassDad does describe a dynamic that goes back decades in the Middle East where Arab states tried to substitute a show of pro-Palestinian militancy for effective governance at home — or even effective advocacy for the Palestinians themselves. This dynamic has become deeply ingrained. Hamas’ rockets are its continuation, a kind of show of militancy as futilely tragic as it is tragically futile.
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p>It does seem as if we have reached a very horrible impasse.
… it wasn’t futile for Hamas if the goal was never a two state solution in the first place. It should be noted, however, that the appearance of Hamas not necessarily wanting a two state solution shouldn’t necessarily be taken at face value. It could be that they already do not see a viable two state solution as being feasible in the current conditions. Personally, I think their behavior was utterly predictable. I can imagine the frustration of being told that they should be negotiating in good faith knowing full well that the object of negotiation is losing worth by the month because the other side isn’t doing anything in good faith at all. It’s the kind of thing that can (demonstrably now) drive an already oppressed people to do something stupid.
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p>Greenwald had a post about the recent 60 Minutes piece:
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p>He then embedded the piece in question:
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p>Looking at that, I just think ‘American revolutionary patriots put their lives on the line for arguably less’.
on either side. Clearly there is an impasse.
My point is that there is ample evidence that Israel itself is not interested in peace despite its protestations to the contrary.
Our military and financial support for the state is predicated on the belief that Israel is a democratic state committed to peace in the region. For us to have any credibility as a world power we need to revisit the underpinnings of this relationship and return to a more pragmatic approach in dealing with the players in the region.
I think both sides are interested in peace.
I don’t think either side is interested in justice.
And without justice, there can be no peace.
no matter what. Not justice as they define it, anyway.
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p>I’m very reluctant to endorse any religious state, regardless of what that religion is. Specifically, if the “Zionist dream” precludes citizens who aren’t Jews, we should explicitly disavow support for that dream.
Why on earth should any country, in the name of “democracy” choose to allow an overwhelming majority of people, who profess undying hatred of you and ardent wishes for the violent end of your country, you, and everybody like you, to assume control of the government?
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p>Why should democracy be a suicide pact?
… where citizenship is dependent on being non-criminal, that’s probably reasonable (to some degree). Defining citizenship based on beliefs, however, doesn’t feel very democratic to me. It seems to me that freedom of thought and freedom of conscience are the kinds of things that a modern democracy shouldn’t suppress.
I should have said that Israel is not very interested in peace that involves any concessions on its part.
Israel has decided it is not very interested in concessions on its part that do not involve peace.
… but it’s actions indicate otherwise. They’ve lurched to the right to the point of not really wanting to negotiate in good faith. If they were really interested in peace being the ‘good faith’ goal of negotiations, they wouldn’t be building settlements on lands whose disposition is still being negotiated. Its like negotiating on the price of a house advertised as ‘move-in-ready’ while the seller is simultaneously rendering it uninhabitable.
I don’t suppose it could be because they indicated a willingness to make vast concessions at Camp David, only to be rebuffed and faced with waves of suicide bombers, and later forced right wing settlers to abandon settlements, at great political cost to the government, only to be met with more suicide bombers and rockets.
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p>The political credibility of any Israeli political party favoring “reasonableness” or negotiation has evaporated because these approaches have proved, over time, to be manifestly unproductive and misguided. Instead, they are regarded as weakness: maybe if we blow up another bus, we’ll get more land! That is why, in yesterday’s election, the Labor Party has essentially ceased to be.
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p>Israeli liberals and moderates made a huge political bet that by offering land, they could secure stability, if not outright peace. They secured nothing. The left is accordingly no more, and the moderates are embattled. What a shock.
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p>Good faith requires two parties, and the Palestinian side has never, not even once, shown any at all. And the response to this among “progressives” is consistently to cluck at Israel for not doing more. Israel has –rightly– decided that it could care less about progressive opinion when the lives of its citizens are daily at stake.
… the walk away at camp David was probably a wrong move. Although it has been noted that it was more complicated that that. But here is the irony. They were making much more progress previously, but the ability for negotiations to make progress was undercut by settler activity.
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p>In the thread on LiL someone pointed out “Why do people always give Israel a hard time.” I don’t disapprove of Israel. But if you really like Israel then the worst thing you can do is to continue to enable the current course. It’s a problem of self-destruction because the only way out they’ve left themselves is deporting the majority of the population (ethnic cleansing anyone?) or apartheid, neither of which I think the state could survive. This certainly isn’t the fault of ‘the left’. This is the ground game as it exists.
Again, the ability to stem settler activity was hampered by suicide bombers.
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p>My question isn’t “Why is everyone so hard on Israel?”
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p>It is: Why is Israel expected to make such wrenching concessions, but the Palestinians are expected to make no concessions at all? I mean, is it so hard not to launch explosives into civilian areas?
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p>As to the future: unless something changes, it must be apartheid, or unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, followed by a completely sealed border and a wish of luck. I don’t see any reason why they should ever, ever consider making this endless war into a civil war.
… that settlement activity was motivated by anything other than religious real-estate claims. Put differently
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p>If they really want a two state solution, then there has to be land for peace. That’s it. If they find that wrenching, then they shouldn’t be paying lip service toward it and shouldn’t be dragging the other negotiating party for a ride. If this is indeed what was going on for years now, it’s little surprise that Hamas gave up on negotiations now, isn’t it? From what I can tell, the only reason that may be ‘wrenching’ is because of their own politically powerful militant minority and encouragement to hold out by the results-blind ‘I’m with Israel’ crowd in the US.
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p>The sealing of the border option has been made impossible, again because of settlement activity. I agree about a civil war, but I don’t see how they can seriously avoid it without apartheid. I don’t see how they can keep claiming the moral high ground under those circumstances. I don’t see how they can survive international scrutiny under those circumstances, to say nothing of their Middle East neighbors.
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p>I simply don’t see a way out of it short of a demonstrated commitment to stop or even reverse settlement activity (which the UN has already told them they had to do anyway) and this is politically nonviable while the hard-liners are in charge and getting votes for setting them down this self-destructive path.
if anyone actually believes that we would be any closer to peace were it not for Hamas’ rockets. The real tragedy is that the answer is probably “no”. We weren’t making any progress when it was only stone-throwing kids and not much else.
Israel made progress assuaging militant settlers from voting them out of office by dragging on the negotiations in bad faith while settlements continued to be built.
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p>Oh… you meant progress toward peace. Different goal.
Possibly without Hamas’ rockets, the Israelis would not elect hardliners.
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p>Possibly without hardliners, they’re be less support for settlers on the West Bank.
… but as I recall, before the hardliners became popular again, the moderates still had difficulty stopping the settlers. As a political movement settlers don’t care if the government isn’t hard-line. It doesn’t deter them because when the government moves against them they make political hay enough to their policy of expansion (even if it disagrees with government policy). They are in the way of any true negotiations because the current framework is land for peace, but if the land being promised is disappearing or unsustainable, it’s no wonder that Palestinians who dismiss the efficacy of negotiating with in such a context became more popular.
…has there been “state sponsored terrorism” on the part of Israel? There’s plenty that I wish Israel had done differently over the years, but that accusation seems a bit over the top. I don’t recall stories of Israeli suicide bombers walking into clubs and blowing themselves up. Are there extremists on the Israeli side? Sure, Yitzak Rabin’s assassin comes to mind, but even hardline governments like Ariel Sahon’s or Benjamin Netanyahu’s aren’t terrorist organizations a la Hamas, and pre-1990s PLO.
was terroristic in many aspects. Many Israeli officials even justified the large number of civilian deaths as a way of teaching the Palestinians a lesson. This was echoed by Tom Friedman as explained by Glenn Greenwald here
Terrorism is not just suicide bombers. It can also take the form of helicopter gunships, phosphorous and nuclear-laden armaments, and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
…an invasion. I guess when I think of terrorism I think of anything but the actions of the legitimate armed forces of a given country. It may not be nice, but Israel has just about always had the policy of not going tit for tat, but rather coming down with all the wrath of God they can muster. I would say the incursion into Gaza was justified this time. My understanding was that Hamas just kept firing into Israel for the fun of it and Israel finally decided enough was enough.
First of all, the classical definition of terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians to achieve political aims. Nothing about the size of the terrorist organization or whether or not the terrorists wear uniforms. In the eyes of the terrorist the goal is always “legitimate.”
With regard to the chronology of events immediately prior to the invasion of Gaza, there had been a ceasefire for 4 1/2 months that had been very faithfully adhered to despite the fact that Israel had failed to honor its agreement to lift the siege of Gaza. The ceasefire suspiciously ended at the time of the US election when Israel killed 6 Hamas militants because of a tunneling incident.
Frankly your manner of engaging, e.g. “just for the fun of it”, suggests that you’re not interested in a serious discussion of the issue.
…was that Israel was the responding side in this situation. If not please let me know, but then I must turn the question around. Why would Israel start attacking unprovoked (ie “just for the fun of it”, admittedly a bit of a snarky phrase, but I’m making a serious point)? I never did feel I got the complete story on this one. I stand by my understanding of what constitutes terrorism, but whatever – the point is what causes these flare-ups.
I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself. The issue that Mr Lynne is trying to address here is that there is no logic in its attempts to secure its future viability as a democratic state. In fact its actions over the years have made its security and the possibility for peace and a just solution very tenuous.
The Gaza incursion should be judged by what was accomplished. Just like in the Lebanon bombing of 2006, the hand of the Palestinian hard-liners was strengthened and that of the potential peace makers weakened. When a state engages in violence against a civilian population that has no chance of accomplishing the stated goals, this has to be considered terrorism.
We forget so soon. Back over the summer, after the cease-fire, we had two months that were almost entirely rocket-free. There was a single rocket fired into Israel that entire month.
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p>That’s not “as many rockets as possible,” not by a long shot, particularly when facing an unreasonable blockade.
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p>Of course, the whole thing fell apart when there was tunneling into Israel, Israel went and killed six, and it got worse from there. (Still, let’s recall that not one Israeli civilian was killed during the cease-fire.
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p>Peace is hard, peace is dangerous, peace is improbable. But despite your over-the-top rhetoric describing a Palestinian master plan, it is possible.