27 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

1. Well… is it too late indeed? What say you?

   

   1. Mo-ha-med
   on November 29th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
   

2. I don’t think the two-state solution was ever a practicable option. Palestinians don’t want peace. If they did, we would have had it a long time ago.

   

   2. Jonathan
   on November 29th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
   

3. Mo – I think it’s probably too late.

   

   3. Lisa Goldman
   on November 29th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
   

4. Very interesting indeed Lisa. It actually has influenced my ideas on possible solution for the Israeli/Palestinian crisis. Thank you very much for mentioning this article.

   

   4. Ida
   on November 30th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
   

5. Ida, I’m so glad you found the article interesting. Thank you for the feedback.

   

   5. Lisa Goldman
   on November 30th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
   

6. I must say that I found Yakobson’s counter-argument more persuasive. Benny Morris’ exceptionally (to me) clear-eyed take is compelling, too.

   

   6. Rob
   on December 5th, 2010 at 9:17 am
   

7. Rob, neither Yakobson nor Morris offers a counter-argument to Rubinstein’s core point – ie, that ‘one state’ is not a solution, but rather an imminent fact on the ground.

   No-one believes that the PA has the will or the might to fight for a single state from the Med of pre-and-post 1948 Palestine. But since Israel apparently has no intention of withdrawing from the West Bank, the only reasonable choice is to give full civil rights to all the residents of territory under Israel’s control.

   The unreasonable choice is to choose to continue indefinitely military rule of the minority over a disenfranchised population that will soon be the majority. I believe the South Africans have already demonstrated that that is not a sustainable state of affairs.

   

   7. Lisa Goldman
   on December 5th, 2010 at 10:57 am
   

8. I don’t buy Rubinstein’s point. I think the ‘imminent fact on the ground’ is that Israel is going to have another fifty years of war unless the Palestinians and their Arab League backers come up with a moderate leadership that’s prepared to genuinely make peace and bury the memories of the last 100 years. But every one that’s even hinted at going in that direction in last half century has been assassinated.

   Why is it so difficult for the Palestinians to make peace? You’ve said it yourself, Lisa. Israelis march for peace, sing songs for peace, demonstrate for peace, excoriate their government for peace. Why don’t the Palestinians? I can’t recall to mind a single Arab or Palestinian leader who’s said ‘We want to live in peace and amity with our Jewish neighbours.’ Not from 1908 right up until now.

   I mean, what’s so hard about it? What’s so hard about not wanting to kill people? What’s so hard about saying, ‘We want to build our own state the way Israel did and, guess what, maybe the Israelis could help us with that, they seem to have done it pretty well, and we’re living in hell right now’?

   And maybe they could even say: ‘Yeah, we regret the the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference in 1920, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and the Jewish National Homeland, and the UN Resolution of 1947 and everything that followed from that. But that water flowed under the bridge long ago and we’ve got better things to do right now than fixate on things of the past that can’t now possibly be undone.’

   On the West Bank, I have to disagree. If Israel pulled out, and Hamas took over (as they would), you’d have an Iranian proxy sitting within ten miles of Tel Aviv, with nuclear arms in the offing. Not a happy prospect?

   Yes, I know; it’s easy to be more Israeli than Israelis when you’re a long way outside the place. I hope to make my first trip to Israel next year and sniff out the winds for myself. Maybe I’ll come round to your view

   

   8. Rob
   on December 5th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
   

9. Rob, you are arguing that you don’t want one state that includes Israel and the West Bank. Fine. But we are not talking here about what one does or does not want. We are talking about what is happening.

   Your question about the Palestinians is an interesting one. It is based on the belief, I gather, that the Palestinians do not want or try to make peace. What Palestinians are you talking about? Not about the grassroots leaders and their children who are arrested in the middle of the night and taken into administrative detention because they organized demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians against Israel’s security barrier, which confiscates Palestinian land, separates Palestinian farmers from their land and impoverishes labourers because they can no longer afford the roundabout taxi route that takes them to work. And not about the Fatah-led government in the West Bank, which has police and security forces that work in tandem with Israel, even arresting Hamas activists on Israel’s command.

   I once did write that Israelis sing and talk a lot about peace. I was comparing Israelis to Hezbollah, which is a fascist movement. I was not comparing Israel to the Palestinian leadership; and I was not even comparing the average Israeli to the average Lebanese. Four years later, though, I regret writing that piece for the BBC’s website. I have come to realize, based on my own experiences over the past few years, that while the Israeli government and the Israeli people might talk a lot about peace, they do nothing to achieve that goal – not even the tiny, basic step of acknowledging that the events of 1948 caused great suffering to the indigenous Palestinian people. Certainly not by halting settlements, dismantling checkpoints, providing basic municipal services to Palestinian neighoburhoods in East Jerusalem (school, paved street, garbage collection, health clinics) or even just treating Palestinians with basic, human courtesy.

   

   9. Lisa Goldman
   on December 5th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
   

10. BTW Rob, I forgot to mention that I really respect and appreciate your willingness to keep dialoguing, despite the gap between our views.

    

    10. Lisa Goldman
    on December 5th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
    

11. Dear Lisa,

    I don’t believe that political differences should lead to emotional or psychological alienation – indeed, I fervently hope that is not the case.

    There is quite a lot I would like to say in response to your last comment, but I’m conscious that a dissident of the right can be an unwelcome guest on a blog of the left. Happy to respond, though, if you would like me to – but it might be at some length.

    I was sad and unhappy to read your comments about Israel and peace, and how you have changed your mind since the second Lebanon war.

    

    11. Rob
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
    

12. Rob, just please don’t forget that my opinions are based on extensive experience and much thought. I am not sitting in New York and coming up with theories to validate my preconceptions. I went through a long series of very difficult experiences, witnessing things and verifying things.

    

    12. Lisa Goldman
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
    

13. Yes, I understand that. I also recognise that many, many Israelis do not agree with you, based on their own experiences and witnessings.

    It’s difficult for us on the outside to know who to most closely listen to.

    

    13. Rob
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
    

14. Actually, that is not true. Very few Israelis – maybe 1% (I am being generous) have seen the whole picture. And of that 1%, there are plenty who are simply violent and hateful enough to think that’s the way things should be.

    

    14. Lisa Goldman
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
    

15. But it seems to me that a good many more than 1% of Palestinians are given over to the ways and the siren call of hatred and violence.

    

    15. Rob
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
    

16. Perhaps it seems that way, but an examination of the data and of the picture on the ground does not support that impression.

    

    16. Lisa Goldman
    on December 6th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
    

17. Yes, the data and facts on the ground are key. But what do they say to us?

    Lisa, this is a crude way of putting it, but here it is. There’s you, and there’s Caroline Glick. There’s Benny Morris and Efraim Karsh, and then there’s Gideon Levy and Amira Hess. And there’s Khaled abu Toameh. They all read the data and the facts on the grounds, but they disagree profoundly about what they mean.

    In search of the ‘truth’, or at least a reasonable explanation, of the realities of the Middle East, to whom do I and the rest of the world turn?

    

    17. Rob
    on December 6th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
    

18. Sorry to sound so pompous.

    

    18. Rob
    on December 6th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    

19. You don’t sound pompous. Caroline Glick does not go to the West Bank – at least, not to the Palestinian areas. She has never interviewed a Palestinian grassroots organizer or walked around a refugee camp – or even visited Ramallah. She has never attended a trial at Ofer Prison, where Palestinian teens are jailed for a year on charges of throwing stones. Convictions are obtained on scanty evidence gathered from coerced witnesses – teens who were arrested in pre-dawn hours and taken to jail where they are shackled, slapped around and blindfolded, forbidden to use the toilet or receive a glass of water for up to 24 hours, then interrogated without the knowledge of their parents or the presence of an attorney. Khaled Abu Toameh does not cover demonstrations where unarmed Palestinian villagers are shot with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, or doused with skunk gas, because they are protesting – peacefully and in the confines of their own village – the army’s failure to obey the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision that the route of the security barrier must be altered in order to allow the villagers access to their own farmland. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass *do* witness these events. They are eyewitnesses. I have seen them. That is the difference.

    

    19. Lisa Goldman
    on December 7th, 2010 at 12:52 am
    

20. Lisa,

    OK, I will concede a lot of that. I think you’re bing a bit hard on Khaled abu Toameh, who is widely regarded as the best connected journalist in Israel writing on Palestinian issues – or maybe just by people like me, active agents of the Zionist lobby as we are .

    On Levy and Hess, well, OK again, though it’s not so easy to see them as dispassionate or accurate observers. Don’t both of them advertise themselves as advocates for the Palestinian cause? I recall Levy some years ago positing that the electoral victory of Hamas was a good thing because the best way to stop terrorism was to put the terrorists in charge of the Palestinian proto-state. It didn’t work in the case of Gaza, obviously.

    I don’t deny either that the way the security services treat the Palestinians is sometimes insensitive and even cruel. I don’t deny that many of the settlers swagger around armed to the teeth and lose no opportunity to hurl deeply offensive abuse at elderly Palestinians, to the lasting humiliation of the latter.

    However, with respect, I would see these things as side issues. The security barrier and the checkpoints are pinpricks. Personally, I think they are necessary, given the six year second Intifada, and the epidemic of suicide attacks (about which you yourself wrote so eloquently many years ago). They don’t go to the big picture. Neither does the fact that Palestinian children chuck rocks at Israeli cars, or that settlers uproot Palestinians’ olive groves (or do they?).

    Given the 100 year history of animosity between the communities, it would be remarkable if there was not a degree of regrettable behaviour – on both sides, humans being what they are.

    Even the suicide attacks, ghastly as they are, are just tactics, like really, REALLY big pin-pricks. They represent the most high-impact, low cost option for a terrorist organisation which can preserve its key operatives for planning and bomb-making, whilst sacrificing its pawns in a way which preserved their own infrastructures – since the perpetrators can’t survive to be captured or interrogated. For all their horrific impact, they are no more than a carefully considered nicely timed and determined tactic.

    Which returns me to the big picture. It seems to me that the real issue is the refusal of the Palestinians and all the Arab states (bar Egypt and Jordan, however reluctantly) to accept the legitimacy of the State of Israel and commit to living in peace with it. From what you’ve written, it’s clear you are disillusioned with Israel’s commitment to peace. I have less difficulty understanding why Israel’s enthusiasm for peace should have waned.

    Everything Israel has accepted, from Oslo in 1993-1996 (which the Palestinians accepted at the time and now repudiate) to the Clinton Parameters of 2000-2001, has been rejected. Nothing they offer can ever be enough. The withdrawal from Gaza, achieved at huge cost and massive psychological trauma, was not received with appreciation, but with three year rain of rockets, which led (like the withdrawal from southern Lebanon) to yet another unnecessary war, sparked by Palestinians in the one case and a theocratic terrorist army on the other (not sure if I agree with your characterisation of Hizbollah as fascist, btw).

    Again with great respect, I think these things are far more important in the scheme of things than the fact that a teenage Palestinian doesn’t get a drink of water after he’s arrested for rock-throwing. That’s not a cheap shot, Lisa. It’s a point of strategic analysis. At that level, I think people like Glick and Morris are calling it exactly right.

    Of course, the strategic and the tactical are not irrelevant to each other. For as long as the states concerned (let’s agree for the moment that the West Bank and Gaza constitute a state-in-the-making) conduct themselves in ways inimical to peace, the situation on the ground – on both sides – will only get worse.

    And to finish this long and turgid comment, I would have to say in that context that Israel has done everything it reasonably can to promote a reasonably just and peaceful settlement – the best solution that can be reasonably aspired to – and has now, by and large, given up in the face of repeated failures and rejections.

    For their part, the Palestinians have done absolutely nothing. Not even to disavow terrorism, accept Israel’s right to exist, or resile from the impossible dream of the right of return, which even Meretz won’t accept in a year of blue moon Sundays.

    Cheers, Lisa.

    

    20. Rob
    on December 7th, 2010 at 9:55 am
    

21. Leaving aside your pinpricks – which are far more serious than you believe, both at the macro and micro levels – I would take issue with your interpretation of the bigger picture. It is not true that the Palestinians have been rejectionists and that Israel has pursued peace. I would say quite the opposite.

    The former head of the Shin Bet has stated on record that Barak did not offer Arafat a marvelous deal at Camp David. That is simply a lie; and, as a great propagandist once said, if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will come to believe it.

    Another former head of the Shin Bet stated on the record that the security barrier was not the reason for the decline in terror attacks after 2002. Avi Dichter said that intelligence services had established a network of coerced collaborators that supplied the security forces with information. Also, cooperation with Fatah (documented – I have seen the documents) went a long way toward tracking down and arresting Hamas operatives. But most importantly, Hamas *decided* to suspend suicide bombings because they had concluded that they were counter-productive. All of my statements are verifiable, BTW.

    Since its decision to suspend suicide attacks, Hamas has told both Egyptian and European negotiators that they are willing to accept a long-term truce with Israel based on a two-state demarcation along the June 4, 1967 boundaries. Israel refused to negotiate with Hamas.

    Here I would like to add that the former head of the Mossad, Efram Halevy, is on record as advocating direct negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Hamas agreed; the Israeli government refused.

    Fatah has publicly said that it disavows the armed struggle.

    The Oslo Accords called upon Israel to withdraw from settlements and engage in negotiations for a final settlement on Jerusalem. Israel refused to withdraw from settlements – in fact, in direct contravention of Oslo, Israel increased settlement growth – and refused to discuss East Jerusalem.

    The PLO has accepted a two-state solution. It is Israel that refuses to withdraw from settlements, refuses to negotiate on East Jerusalem, refuses even to build its security barrier on the 1967 border. The current route makes life completely impossible for Palestinians.

    At the risk of feeling nauseated, I do sometimes read Caroline Glick’s articles. Leaving aside her revolting racism toward Arabs in general and utter lack of humanity toward Palestinians specifically, she simply does not know her facts. Her articles are not merely mendacious; they are factually incorrect. But because she writes purely from the angle of pursuing an agenda, she is impervious to facts.

    

    21. Lisa Goldman
    on December 7th, 2010 at 11:23 am
    

22. OK, let’s have a look at some of these things, Lisa.

    “The former head of the Shin Bet has stated on record that Barak did not offer Arafat a marvelous deal at Camp David. That is simply a lie; and, as a great propagandist once said, if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will come to believe it.”

    That’s not the way that Hillary and Bill tell it in their memoirs, nor the preponderance of the historical record. They state that they (the Americans) and Barak went to Camp David determined on peace. Arafat, regrettably, they said, did not.

    “Another former head of the Shin Bet stated on the record that the security barrier was not the reason for the decline in terror attacks after 2002. Avi Dichter said that intelligence services had established a network of coerced collaborators that supplied the security forces with information.”

    Why on earth did they build the security fence then? There had been no need for it since 1967, and no need in 2002. By 2002, the dream of greater Israel was long gone, and it wasn’t interested in land grabs for the sake of them. Of course it was built to deter terrorists, whether it was a good idea or not (I think it was).

    “Also, cooperation with Fatah (documented – I have seen the documents) went a long way toward tracking down and arresting Hamas operatives.”

    Well, of course they would. Hamas was more popular than Fatah and constituted its greatest threat. We saw how that rivalry played out when Hamas took over Gaza in a bloody coup. Bodies thrown from rooftops, and all that.

    “But most importantly, Hamas *decided* to suspend suicide bombings because they had concluded that they were counter-productive. All of my statements are verifiable, BTW.”

    The counter-argument is that Hamas resorted to rocket attacks because the suicide attacks were bad publicity. Israel’s increased security posture also contributed. Hamas in on the public record as acknowledging both aspects.

    “Since its decision to suspend suicide attacks, Hamas has told both Egyptian and European negotiators that they are willing to accept a long-term truce with Israel based on a two-state demarcation along the June 4, 1967 boundaries. Israel refused to negotiate with Hamas.”

    Two problems with this. A long-term truce (or more properly, a pause, a hudna) was an obvious ploy to gain time to arm for the final assault. Leading Hamas theologians have said so quite openly. It does not constitute a peace deal or a ceasefire. Additionally, the 5 June borders are indefensible, based as they are on the 1949 armistice lines. It’s quite obvious that that there is going to have to be an exchange of territories to meet the requirements of UN Resolution 242 – accepted by the Israelis, rejected by the Arabs.

    “Here I would like to add that the former head of the Mossad, Efram Halevy, is on record as advocating direct negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Hamas agreed; the Israeli government refused.”

    I don’t have any difficulty with Israel refusing to deal with an organisation sworn to its destruction, as articulated in its charter. Obviously this is a decision for the government of Israel, which is elected by the people, and not by its head of external intelligence, who is not.

    “Fatah has publicly said that it disavows the armed struggle.”

    But only because it has decided that the propaganda war against Israel, in terms of its demonisation and delegitimization, is far better, cheaper, publicity-friendly and more cost-effective form of struggle. They have said as much, in public. And, of course, they are right.

    “The Oslo Accords called upon Israel to withdraw from settlements and engage in negotiations for a final settlement on Jerusalem. Israel refused to withdraw from settlements – in fact, in direct contravention of Oslo, Israel increased settlement growth – and refused to discuss East Jerusalem.”

    East Jerusalem and the settlements were ‘final status’ issues in Oslo. Oslo itself did not seek to resolve those issues, but pushed them some years out to the future. Wasn’t the whole deal at Oslo about the interim management of areas A, B and C, not an immediate resolution of their underlying difficulties?

    “The PLO has accepted a two-state solution.”

    It has never done so. Even today, Abbas refuses to accept the identity of Israel as a Jewish state. By any reading, the two-state solution involves a state for Jewish Israelis and another for Palestinian Arabs. Abbas refuses to accept the former. Therefore, he rejects a two-state solution (with a weather eye on the right of return, of course).

    Bear in mind that Fatah power-brokers have said publicly that Arafat only agreed to Oslo as head of the PLO, not as head of Fatah, its most powerful faction. Therefore his acquiescence to Oslo was a fraud from the start.

    Another thought to keep in mind is that while Israel has no institutional problem with accepting millions of Arabs within its borders, Abbas will not accept a single Jew in Palestine.

    “It is Israel that refuses to withdraw from settlements, refuses to negotiate on East Jerusalem, refuses even to build its security barrier on the 1967 border. The current route makes life completely impossible for Palestinians.”

    Israel withdrew from the Sinai and from Gaza. That any disengagement from the West Bank will be more problematical is only the fault of the Arab states and the Palestinians. If Jordan and Egypt had agreed to take back the territories (not East Jerusalem) in return for peace, as offered by Israel, they would have got them in a heartbeat. Instead, Israel got, of course, the famous ‘three NOs’ of Khartoum: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.

    I don’t fault Israel for fortifying the West Bank as a buffer state against the threat of invading armies, based on what was in effect a declaration of perpetual war.

    Both Barak and Olmert were prepared to negotiate on East Jerusalem. Netanyahu, not so much. I’d fault him on that, but not more than the Palestinians, who deny any Jewish association with the Western Wall, and with Jerusalem more generally, in defiance of 3000 years of historical and archaeological evidence.

    “At the risk of feeling nauseated, I do sometimes read Caroline Glick’s articles. Leaving aside her revolting racism toward Arabs in general and utter lack of humanity toward Palestinians specifically, she simply does not know her facts. Her articles are not merely mendacious; they are factually incorrect. But because she writes purely from the angle of pursuing an agenda, she is impervious to facts.”

    And on that outburst of venom I think we must leave it.

    Lisa, I’ve always thought that reasonable people could find some basis of agreement with other reasonable people. You are a reasonable person, and so, I hope, am I. But we are quite unable to agree. That seems to leave us at the mercy of the fanatics.

    Adios, for this thread at least.

    Best regards,

    Rob

    

    22. Rob
    on December 7th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
    

23. Rob, your opinions are a product of your worldview – not the facts.

    Yes, the purpose of the security barrier is a land grab. Look at the route: it encircles the largest settlement blocs – bringing them into the ‘Israeli’ side.

    Both the Clintons are still active in politics, so of course their memoirs are carefully self-censored.

    The West Bank is not difficult to leave for tactical reasons. Israel does not need a ‘buffer.’ The West Bank is difficult to leave because the settler movement and their allies would effect a collapse of the governing coalition if the prime minister decides to push for a withdrawal.

    You are offended by my comments about Caroline Glick? I really think that’s a bit much. This is a woman who openly mocked the death of civilians, including children and the elderly, simply because they were Palestinian.

    

    23. Lisa Goldman
    on December 7th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
    

24. “Rob, your opinions are a product of your worldview – not the facts.”

    And yours are not? Where have you contested the recitation of my ‘facts’ with anything other than your worldview?

    “Yes, the purpose of the security barrier is a land grab. Look at the route: it encircles the largest settlement blocs – bringing them into the ‘Israeli’ side.”

    Well, of course it is. That’s where the need for security is greatest. Is it not true that the preponderance of settlement blocs are within a mile or two of the Green Line, and that it is accepted that the outliers will have to be dismantled? That’s not too high a price to pay by the Palestinians. As I’ve argued with even moderate Palestinians: leave the settlers to become Jewish citizens of a Palestinian state. They say: no way! So the blocs have to become part of Israel.

    “Both the Clintons are still active in politics, so of course their memoirs are carefully self-censored.”

    That’s as good an account as we’re likely to get, though. Of course the hidden world diplomatic negotiations are properly kept secret (until WikiLeaks!).

    “The West Bank is not difficult to leave for tactical reasons. Israel does not need a ‘buffer.’ The West Bank is difficult to leave because the settler movement and their allies would effect a collapse of the governing coalition if the prime minister decides to push for a withdrawal.”

    Point taken. But the settler movement only got to the point of power it did because of Arab intransigence. Even now, if both sides worked to create the right climate, we’d find there was room to negotiate (even Begin did, for heaven’s sake). But one side won’t.

    “You are offended by my comments about Caroline Glick? I really think that’s a bit much. This is a woman who openly mocked the death of civilians, including children and the elderly, simply because they were Palestinian.”

    Unlike you, I read Glick all the time, and I must have missed those references.

    I am very sorry that this has descended into acrimony, and I am sure I am mainly to blame.

    

    24. Rob
    on December 7th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
    

25. There is no blame to be taken, because I do not feel the target of acrimony.

    

    25. Lisa Goldman
    on December 7th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
    

26. G-d bless, then, and good night.

    

    26. Rob
    on December 7th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
    

27. I just came across this post, a bit late to the fray but I think your considered and thoughtful responses to questions and propositions put forward by other readers say so much for you. It’s especially heartening to see such civilised debate taking place after being on the Ha’aretz Facebook page feedback threads!

    I found the whole idea of one-state emerging, regardless of what the politicos on either side want the ‘solution’ to be, fascinating. Especially in the light of recent developments in Israel which show its alarming move rightwards continues (oaths of loyalty, questions over whether the state can be both Jewish and democratic, rabbinic rulings etc) I hope for more open discussions of the realities of the situation.

    Thanks as always of bringing more light to this topic.

    Zoe

    

    27. Zoe
    on December 19th, 2010 at 9:04 pm