Politics/Middle East « Shalom Rav

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Confessions of a Peace Process Cynic

Published June 2, 2009 Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East 1 Comment

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m on board. I’m in there with the American Jews who are reassuring Obama that we’ve got his back. But I have to say it’s all I can do to resist my cynicism when I read about Peace Process, version 5.0. (And for safety’s sake, let me just reiterate my blog’s disclaimer: I’m writing this merely as a snarky private citizen – not on behalf of any organization with which I’m affiliated.)

As I’ve written before, I’m encouraged by Obama and Clinton’s tough talk on the settlements. Nevertheless, I’ve increasingly been wondering if/how the administration would back up their tough words with meaningful action.

Thus I confess to a distinctly familiar sinking sensation when I read this in the NY Times this morning:

As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.

Call me cynical, but “symbolic measures” simply aren’t going to cut it. Not when you’re up against the juggernaut that is Israel’s settlement movement. (Read Akiva Eldar’s “Lords of the Land” if you think “juggernaut” is too strong a word.) And certainly not when you are dealing with the most pro-settlement Israeli administration in recent memory. Already several Israeli officials are complaining loudly that the demand for a settlement freeze is “unfair.” (“There are reasonable demands and demands that are not reasonable.” Bibi said today.)

I found it interesting that the NY Times article cited George H. W. Bush and the loan guarantees – now that brought back some memories. Remember the last time an American president tried to tie US aid to Israel’s settlement activity?

For many in the Jewish community, Bush’s presidency could be encapsulated in his offhand quip to reporters in September 1991 during an AIPAC lobbying effort on Capitol Hill in support of the proposed $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel: “I’m one lonely little guy” up against “some powerful political forces” made up of “a thousand lobbyists on the Hill.”

Bush had opposed the loan guarantees as long as Israel continued settlement in the West Bank and Gaza. The president finally agreed to a loan guarantee package in August 1992, requiring as a set-off any funds Israel spent to build housing or infrastructure in the territories. Despite this action, the political damage was done. The loan guarantee controversy later motivated Jewish opposition to President Bush, who received no more than 12% of the Jewish vote in the 1992 election (down from close to 35% in 1988).

More than fifteen years later, you’d still be hard pressed to find anyone in the American Jewish establishment supporting the withholding of aid to Israel under any circumstances. As I’ve written before, this is the “third rail” in the American Jewish community. But trust me on this: it may well be the only diplomatic stick that will get Israel’s attention at the end of the day.

Now is Obama up to that level of political courage? And even more to the point: will the American Jewish community still have his back if/when that time comes?

In Search of Perspective in Bil’in

Published May 27, 2009 Israel , Nonviolence , Palestine , Politics/Middle East , War 2 Comments

Recently read a piece on Ynet describing the experience of IDF soldiers stationed in Bil’in – a Palestinian village which has been the site of a weekly demonstration for the past four years. I was particularly intruiged by the description of one soldier, who described the detail as “more terrifying for us than dealing with terrorists in Gaza inside a tank:”

In Gaza you spot a terrorist, fire a shell, and it’s over. Here you face citizens who hurl a stone or a Molotov cocktail, but your ability to respond is limited. It may appear that we are the ones using force here, but in reality that’s not the case, as we are subject to very difficult restrictions.

I completely understand the perspective of an individual soldier who is ordered to perform a incomprehensibly difficult duty such as this. But I understand that there is also more to understand – so much more. I certainly don’t begrudge the experience of individuals caught up in this bitter struggle. But I believe we do ourselves a huge disservice when we neglect – as this article did – the larger context in which this struggle occurs.

Some context: the Bil’in demonstration was born in response to Israel’s placement of its separation barrier in such a way that it now separates 60% of the village from its farming land – land that Israel is using to expand its settlement of Modi’in Illit, which lies immediately to the west.

In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to reroute the barrier, which it called “highly prejudicial” to the villagers of Bil’in. Though Israel’s Defense Ministry has said it will abide by the ruling, the fence has yet to be moved. Just last month, the state submitted a new proposal to the Court to redraw the route of the barrier. According this plan, however, only 700 of the original 1,700 dunams of farmland will be returned to the villagers of Bil’in.

The Bil’in demonstration is a non-violent direction action that began in January 2005 and has taken place every Friday since then (see clip above). Though Bil’in is a local initiative, it is an integral part of the larger Palestinian non-violence movement- a significant socio-political phenomenon that is chronically under reported by the Western media. Indeed, it is important to note that Palestinian non-violent action vastly predates Bil’in – this is a movement that coalesced in large part during the years of the First Intifada. (I highly recommend Mary Elizabeth King’s excellent book, “A Quiet Revolution” for more on this important history.)

It has been well reported that the Bil’in demonstrations have witnessed tragedy in recent months. Four Palestinians, including two children, have been killed in the area since last summer and dozens have been injured. Last month Bassem Abu Rahmeh, a Palestinian demonstrator, was killed by a tear gas canister that sliced through his chest. A month earlier, an American demonstrator named Tristan Anderson was critically injured in a similar demonstration in the nearby village of Ni’ilin.

As the YNet article attests, some Palestinian demonstrators have indeed become increasingly violent. In a sense, we are witnessing the classic spiral. As any student of non-violent activism knows, it is difficult to contain the frustration that invariably sets in when an action settles in for the long haul – particularly when there is so little progress along the way. This recent article from the Guardian illuminates the challenges the Bil’in protesters face in this regard – including the generational split in the villagers’ attitudes toward non-violence:

The Bil’in demonstration was always intended to be non-violent, although on Friday, as is often the case, there were half a dozen younger, angrier men lobbing stones at the soldiers with slingshots. The Israeli military, for its part, fires teargas, stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets and sometimes live ammunition at the crowd.

There have long been Palestinian advocates of non-violence, but they were drowned out by the militancy of the second intifada, the uprising that began in late 2000 and erupted into waves of appalling suicide bombings.

Eyad Burnat, 36, has spent long hours in discussions with the young men of Bil’in, a small village of fewer than 2,000, convincing them of the merits of “civil grassroots resistance”.

“Of course it gets more difficult when someone is killed,” said Burnat, who heads the demonstration. “But we’ve faced these problems in the past. We’ve had more than 60 people arrested and still they go back to non-violence. We’ve made a strategic decision.”

Some, like the moderate Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti, hope this might be the start of a broader movement throughout Palestinian society. “It is a spark that is spreading,” he said in Bil’in. “It gives an alternative to the useless negotiations and to those who say only violence can help.”

But it is not so much that all the young men of the village are converted to the peaceful cause, rather that they respect and follow their elders. “I personally don’t believe in non-violent resistance,” said Nayef al-Khatib, 21, an accountancy student. “They’ve taken our land by force so we should take it back from them by force.”

As always, perspective is everything. The Ynet article did a fine job of documenting the perspective of scared, frustrated young soldiers who find themselves in an impossible position. But there there are other equally valid and compelling perspectives we cannot ignore: the perspective of the farmers whose access to their own lands and livelihood have been taken from them; the perspective of villagers seeking justice in an inherently unjust situation; the perspective of non-violent activists trying to rise about the frustration and rage that inevitably surface during the course of their struggle.

As for us Jews, I only hope we can go beyond our narrow perspective of Palestinians as nothing more than violent terrorists who want nothing more than to wipe Jews off the face of the map. Is that a step we might be willing to take?

“Now the Hard Work Starts…”

Published May 21, 2009 Israel , News , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East Leave a Comment

So Netanyahu managed to spend his entire sojourn in DC without uttering the magic words “two state solution.” On the upside, however, the Obama team has laid down the line on Israel harder than any American administration in recent memory – particularly on the issue of a settlement freeze.

Note Clinton’s forceful words on the subject during this recent Al-Jazeera interview:

We want to see a stop to settlement construction – additions, natural growth, any kind of settlement activity – that is what the president has called for.

Clinton’s words here were actually very carefully chosen. Indeed, one of the latest tactics of the Israeli government to skirt this issue is to insist on allowing additional construction on existing settlements to accommodate “natural growth.” During a visit to Washington earlier this month, the increasingly disappointing Shimon Peres, put it this way:

Israel cannot instruct settlers in existing settlements not to have children or get married. These children are not going to live on roofs.

(The mind reels with potential witty rejoinders to that whopper. I’ll refrain..)

We should at least be heartened that Obama has unequivocally drawn the line on settlements – but he still has an incredibly difficult job ahead of him. As Clinton puts it in the interview, now the hard work starts.

We in the American Jewish community are not exempt from this work. If we truly believe that a just and viable two-state solution is in the best interest of all concerned, then it’s time for us to stand up and say so. Click here to do just that.

Tolan to Mitchell: “Good Luck”

Published February 16, 2009 Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East 5 Comments

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Anyone with any illusions about the daunting task that lays ahead for Obama’s new Middle East envoy George Mitchell should read this recent online piece by journalist Sandy Tolan (right).

Readers of previous posts will surely know that I’m a huge fan of Tolan. In this latest article he lays out five critical questions for Mitchell as he seeks to jump-start the search for a two-state solution. Fair warning: Tolan doesn’t pull his punches:

Twelve years later…post-Oslo “facts on the ground” have all but doomed the traditional path to peace. The two-state solution, the central focus of efforts to end the tragedy of Israel and Palestine since 1967, has been undermined by the thickening reality of red-roofed Israeli settlements, military outposts, surveillance towers, and the web of settlers-only roads that whisk Israelis from their West Bank dwellings to prayer in Jerusalem’s Old City, or to shopping and the beach in Tel Aviv. So dense had the Israeli West Bank presence become by 2009, so fragmented is Palestinian life — both physically and politically — that it now requires death-defying mental gymnastics to imagine how a two-state solution could ever be implemented.

I personally find Tolan’s analysis to be provocative and important. I’m interested in hearing your reactions…

Baskin: What the $%#@* Was it All For?

Published February 10, 2009 Gaza , Israel , Palestine , Politics , Politics/Middle East , War 4 Comments

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Are you ready to throw your head back and scream to the high heavens? Just read Gershon Baskin’s column in today’s J Post, in which he reveals that prior to Israel’s attack on Gaza, he met with a senior Hamas official in Europe to discuss possibilities for renewing the cease-fire. He returned to Israel ten days before Israel began the war and sent a letter to Olmert, Barak and Livni, informing them…

…that Hamas was willing to open a direct secret back channel for a package deal that would include the renewal of the cease-fire, the ending of the economic siege and the prisoner exchange for the release of (Gilad) Schalit. I further indicated that Hamas would be willing to implement the agreement on Rafah which included the stationing of Palestinian Authority personnel loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in Rafah and a return of the European monitors. I communicated the same message to (Gilad’s father) Noam Schalit and asked him to make sure that Ofer Dekel, who is charged with the Schalit file by the government, received the Hamas “offer.”

Olmert, et al chose to ignore this opportunity, preferring instead to “teach Hamas a lesson.”

Baskin’s final conclusions:

What did this war achieve? What has changed? Has Israel gained its military deterrence? Has Israel changed the security reality in the South? Is Gilad Schalit at home? Has Hamas reduced its basic demands for the release of Schalit? No, no and no! Israel is negotiating now for exactly what could have been achieved without going to war. Israel spent $1 billion on the war, caused some $2 billion worth of damage in Gaza, more than 1000 people have been killed, thousands of lives have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis lived through weeks of terror; millions of Palestinians suffered the bombardment of their towns, cities and refugee camps – what is the result? More hatred, more extremism and more support for fanatics and their ideas – on both sides of the Gaza border.

Read the whole article and weep…

Rabbis on the Third Rail

Published January 29, 2009 Gaza , Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East , War 7 Comments

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Having nothing better to do, I spent a fair amount of time last week trying to spearhead a Rabbinical Statement on Gaza. Sorry to report that after several days of back and forth we had to fold the entire project when it became clear that we wouldn’t find a wording that would satisfy a critical mass of rabbis. (To make matters even worse, an early version of the statement was precipitously posted on the net before we had consensus. I’m fairly sure it’s still floating around out there in cyberland in all its unauthorized glory…)

There were several motivations for the statement. First and foremost, it came from a desire to express a Rabbinical voice of opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza, which we felt was strategically disastrous and morally outrageous. It was also important to us that Jewish community leaders publicly expressed sorrow not just for the loss of Israeli life but also for the massive devastation experienced by Gazans during the past three weeks:

We condemn the firing of missiles from Gaza that forced so many Israelis to live in fear and we mourn the loss of life that resulted from these attacks. However, we are devastated by Israel’s disproportionate use of force, killing more a myriad of people, including over 450 children. In the wake of such overwhelming civilian bloodshed, we can only ask, in the words of the Talmud, “How do we know that our blood is redder than the blood of our fellow?”

Additionally, since we felt we could not address the tragedy of the war while ignoring the larger political context of the conflict, our statement contained a strong message for the new American administration:

We urge our new President to turn back the policies of previous administrations – policies which have given Israel permission to take numerous measures that we believe are counter to the cause of peace, including the expropriation of Palestinian lands, destruction of Palestinians homes and businesses and the widespread building of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

The most controversial aspect of our statement was our call for the new administration to take an assertive diplomatic approach with Israel, and not to rule out the withholding of military aid “as necessary.” As anyone familiar with American Jewish community politics must surely know, withholding aid is the “third rail” for organized Jewry - i.e., the line that can never be crossed.

And it was this was the sentence more than any other that confounded of our core group of signers. We tried various different wordings: “if the administration deems it necessary,” “withholding of aid as a last resort,” “withholding aid for noncompliance” – but in the end, no wording seemed to suffice. Some felt that this was going to far and others refused to sign unless a strong statement about withholding aid was included.

I can certainly understand why this issue pushes such profound buttons for American Jews. It plays on our deepest fears and as well as our abiding sense of Jewish vulnerability. For many American Jews, the withdrawal of aid would be tantamount to abandonment by Israel’s most significant ally. But there are other Jews – and I believe their ranks are growing – who simply do not want to be party to Israel’s growing militarism and are not afraid to admit it.

For my part, I was less concerned about this particular issue, and perhaps that just reflects my own naivete. While I understand our community’s fears, I also believe that withholding aid is probably the strongest diplomatic “stick” America can wield with Israel – and in the end it may be the only one that will ever really get Israel’s attention. But whatever we might think about this issue, I just don’t agree that it must be ipso facto off the table for mere discussion in our community – and I deeply resent those in our community who reserve the right to excommunicate others who hold this opinion in good faith.

It’s all moot anyhow. No matter how we worded the statement, we couldn’t retain our core of signers. Some asked to have their names removed for various reasons. Many told me they would have loved to have signed, but couldn’t for organizational or professional reasons. After several days we called it quits.

I know there are some decent lessons in all of this, but mostly I’m just frustrated and very, very sad. I know for a fact that there are many Jews out there who were waiting for rabbis to make a statement of this kind, regardless of the final wording. I still believe that whatever the political realities, those of us who care about the shared fate of Israelis and Palestinians will have to find the courage of our convictions.

For me it really comes down to this: two of our most sacred Jewish values are Ahavat Yisrael (“Love of the People Israel”) and Ahavat Habriot (“Love for All People”). Should it really be that hard for us to promote both with equal passion?

Over 1,000 Rabbis Can’t Be Wrong

Published January 22, 2009 Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East Leave a Comment

Check out the video above, which was just released by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom to promote our Rabbinic Letter to Obama. At present, 1,011 rabbis have signed on to say the following to our new President:

American Presidents traditionally look to the Jewish community for insight on Israel-related policy. As Jewish clergy, we pledge to mobilize our people behind your leadership for a mutually-acceptable, two-state solution. We pledge to support you through difficult, trying times, and to celebrate with you when the job is done. We pledge to let the American public know: An American President who dedicates himself to the establishment of a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace acts in the best interests of Israel and the United States.

* We call on you to dedicate yourself to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel early in your first term.

* We call on you to appoint, within your first 100 days in office, a high-level, highly-regarded envoy to the region, an individual who has the ear of both Israelis and Palestinians, the respect of the American people, and ready access to your Oval Office.

* We call on you to establish mechanisms of enforcement and follow-through, so that decisions made and agreements signed will be respected and brought to fruition.

If your rabbi has not signed on yet, please tell him/her to join us!

Gaza: The Arrow Cannot Be Taken Back

Published January 20, 2009 Gaza , Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East , War 2 Comments

“When an arrow leaves the hand of a warrior he cannot take it back.” (Mechilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallach, Shirah)

From this classic Jewish teaching we learn that violence unleashes a myriad of consequences that we can neither control nor reverse. Apropos of recent events, I take this to mean many things:

…when you loose tons and tons of bombs on a small patch of land inhabited by 1.5 million people, you will invariably kill a myriad civilians.

…we cannot begin to fathom the depths of grief and loss that Israel’s actions have brought upon scores of Gazans, their families and loved ones. Indeed, even in the wake of a fragile ceasefire the death toll continues to rise. (Read this article from today’s NY Times, which documents heartbreaking scenes of victims continuing to be pulled from the rubble weeks after they were killed).

…we cannot comprehend the anger and fury Israel’s actions have inspired in Gazans, Palestinians, and the Arab world at large. Yesterday I spoke with a Palestinian American friend who told me he had never seen the Arab streets so inflamed against Israel – and in many cases, against their own governments. (The anger of Egyptian citizens toward their goverment is frightening to behold).

…it is impossible to underestimate the damage this war has done to the already tenous prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. Most analysts seem to agree that no matter whoever might be considered the military “victor” in this war, the moderate Fatah (at present Israel’s only Palestinian peace partner) is the heaviest political casualty. Moderate Arab countries are all the queasier about supporting the peace process and the Saudis are now under fire to pull their plan from the table.

This quote from the NY Times article above sums up the tragic new reality on the ground:

In the upper middle-class neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, Ziad Dardasawi, 40, a wood importer, was trying to process what had happened. As a supporter of Fatah, a political rival of Hamas, Mr. Dardasawi said that he despised Hamas, but that its rocket fire was no justification for Israel’s military response.

“Let’s say someone from Hamas fired a rocket — is it necessary to punish the whole neighborhood for that?” he said, standing in a stairway of his uncle’s house, where furniture had been smashed, and all the windows broken.

He drew on an analogy he thought would strike a chord: “In the U.S., when someone shoots someone, is his entire family punished?”

The Israeli actions made the situation more intractable, he said. “How can I convince my neighbors now for the option of peace? I can’t.”

He added: “Israel is breeding extremists. The feeling you get is that they just want you to leave Gaza.”

(Photo: Tyler Hicks/NY Times)

A Letter to Obama

Published January 19, 2009 Gaza , Israel , Palestine , Peace , Politics , Politics/Middle East Leave a Comment

Arab Parties Nixed

Published January 12, 2009 Israel , Politics , Politics/Middle East 4 Comments

israel This just in from Ha’aretz:

(Israel’s) Central Elections Committee on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month’s parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country’s Supreme Court.

The ruling, made by the body that oversees the elections, reflected the heightened tensions between Israel’s Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.

If you’d like to offer feedback to the Central Election Committee, here’s their contact info.

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Shalom Rav

Archive for the 'Politics/Middle East' Category

Confessions of a Peace Process Cynic

In Search of Perspective in Bil’in

“Now the Hard Work Starts…”

Tolan to Mitchell: “Good Luck”

Baskin: What the $%#@* Was it All For?

Rabbis on the Third Rail

Over 1,000 Rabbis Can’t Be Wrong

Gaza: The Arrow Cannot Be Taken Back

A Letter to Obama

Arab Parties Nixed

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