Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumIsrael's dark future: Democracy in the Jewish state is doomed
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/13/8390387/israel-dark-futureLengthy, compelling piece. The move towards authoritarianism, stigmatization of not only minorities but leftists, eroding support and belief in democracy itself, the impossibility of withdrawing from the West Bank, the inevitable collapse of the Palestinian authority, and the resultant and predictable withdrawal from the community of nations--the trend lines are clear.
As another article put it, the United States doesn't have a Netanyahu problem--it has an Israel problem.
In June 1967, Israel won a stunning military victory against its neighbors, elating Israelis and the global Jewish community with a sense that the grand experiment of a Jewish state might really work. Three weeks later, amid Israel's national euphoria, the country's founding prime minister emerged from retirement to warn Israelis that they had sown the seeds of national self-destruction. David Ben-Gurion, 81 years old, insisted that Israel, which had conquered the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank in the war, must immediately give them up. If they did not, he said, this act of forcible occupation would corrupt the Jewish state and possibly destroy it outright. His speech was barely covered in the Israeli press and widely ignored by Israelis. The Palestinians have lived under Israeli occupation now for 48 years.
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Israel's occupation in the West Bank, now ongoing for nearly half a century, has developed a system of authoritarian control so pervasive that it has come to affect political institutions within Israel proper. The state, by focusing less on upholding democracy within Israel and more on upholding authoritarianism in the West Bank, has drifted in its core mission and nature.
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In other words, their research found, Israel is trading its democracy, piece by piece, to maintain the occupation of the West Bank — even if no one has made a conscious decision to do so. Israeli political institutions such as the court system, police, and even education system have been gradually engineered less to perform their designed functions of upholding democracy and more to enforce and administer an inherently undemocratic occupation.
When asked whether the state of Israel should privilege its Jewish identity or its democratic one, only 24 percent of Israeli Jews said "both." That is a precipitous decline from 48 percent in 2010. Israeli Jews, then, increasingly see those two ideas as in tension. The idea that Israel can be both is now held by less than a quarter of Israeli Jews. They know a choice is coming.
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Israeli voters will ultimately decide the future of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and thus of their own country. Yes, Palestinians play a role in the conflict as well, a role that often exacerbates the conflict. But since the end of the Second Intifada and the Gaza withdrawal in 2005, Israel has become so dominant over the conflict that no decisive change can occur without Israel leading the way. Israeli voters do not want their country to lead; they want to maintain the status quo with all its terrible implications for Palestinians and themselves.
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While most Israeli voters oppose anything as extreme as annexation, they by and large support Netanyahu's approach of maintaining the status quo. About one-third of Israelis voted in 2014 for a political party that officially rejects a Palestinian state. While large numbers of Israelis say they desire a peace deal in theory, most oppose the most basic concessions that would be necessary to achieve one.
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oberliner
(58,724 posts)So it's not about opposing Likud and Netanyahu - it's the whole of Israel. Good to know.
King_David
(14,851 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)of whether he is the best representative of Israel.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/03/benjamin_netanyahu_isn_t_the_problem_the_united_states_has_enabled_israel.html
Israel and the United States have a long, deep friendship. It’s based on shared interests and values. But it’s no longer clear that the old interests and values are shared. The U.S. government believes that Palestinian Arabs, like Jews, are entitled to a sovereign state. We believe it’s wrong to build settlements on land that doesn’t belong to you. We believe that ethnic minorities are entitled to participate in the political process and that they shouldn’t be vilified to scare up votes. The events of the past week suggest that the prime minister of Israel doesn’t believe these things and that most of his people either agree with him or don’t care enough to vote the other way.
It’s true that Israelis have other concerns, such as the high cost of housing. But when you set aside an issue, such as the rights of Palestinians, you’re saying it isn’t important to you. It’s also true that it’s easy for Americans like me to talk about this without facing the threat of terrorism. But sometimes distance is helpful. A friend can help you see changes in yourself. The constant pressure of war, terrorism, and peril has hardened Israel’s heart.
In the days since Netanyahu’s victory, some people have suggested that he didn’t really mean what he said about rejecting Palestinian statehood. They argue that it was just an election ploy and that he can “walk it back.” Please. Netanyahu would never accept such an excuse from a Palestinian leader who disavowed his prior commitment to peace. Netanyahu would say that such a leader couldn’t be trusted, that he wasn’t a “partner for peace,” and that his use of such a ploy to win votes showed the true belligerence of his people. For years, Arabs have said that Netanyahu behaves like a man who’s trying to prevent a Palestinian state. Now he has openly admitted as much. Why should they believe he didn’t mean it?
When you look for a pattern in Netanyahu’s behavior—the settlements, the ethnic demagoguery, the speech to Congress, the retraction of his commitment to an independent Palestine—no moral principle unites them. What unites them is audacity and calculation. Netanyahu does whatever he thinks he can get away with. That’s how he describes the thinking of his adversaries, because that’s how he thinks, too. If you listen to Israeli leaders who are trying to influence the behavior of their nation’s enemies, the word you’ll hear again and again is price.
That’s why Israel has descended to its current level of disregard for others. It hasn’t paid a price. Even in the face of Netanyahu’s unwelcome speech to Congress, the Obama administration sent officials to AIPAC’s annual conference to pledge that the United States would stand by Israel no matter what. “We have Israel’s back, come hell or high water,” national security adviser Susan Rice assured the crowd. So Netanyahu delivered his speech, went home, and gave the United States, Europe, and the Palestinians more hell. And Israelis re-elected him.
Saletan (not the author of the OP) belongs to the naïve club that thinks it's the US's responsibility to "set Israel straight" or some other poppycock, as if it were the 51st state instead of a sovereign country that must rise or fall on its own.
In the US, reflexive support for Israel has started to cleave along ideological, and to a lesser extent partisan, lines. Long overdue, as "should we support Israel no matter what" begins to get asked, as opposed to "how do we best demonstrate our undying affection and dedication to Israel?"
A country embodied in someone like Netanyahu--worth supporting?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)We replaced George W Bush with Barack Obama. I think Israel can do something similar.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Getting US troops out of Iraq was a pretty popular thing to advocate in 2008. And relatively easy to accomplish.
How much support in 2015 is there going to be for cutting a deal that calls for using the IDF to forcibly evacuate dozens of settlements and thousands of Jewish settlers across the West Bank?
The status quo is popular, that is the real problem.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The IDF forcibly evacuated those settlements and those Jews settlers in Gaza were all removed.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)by the current prime minister?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The point is that settlements have been removed and people evacuated in the not so distant past.
Remember also what happened with the Sinai. There were settlements there too.
I think there is as much hope for Israel as there was for the USA when we had Bush/Cheney calling the shots.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Gaza was a de minimis operation compared to what a WB evacuation-even limited to those outside the blocs--would be.
And Bibi opposed that.
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/netanyahu-i-won-t-repeat-gaza-evacuation-mistake-1.281670?v=25A49F5CE1651AAA0765FF735EC195E2
oberliner
(58,724 posts)But he changed his mind.
Not saying that Bibi will change his mind - but eventually he will no longer be PM.
I know it seems far off now, but that day will come!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)alternative, how would a successor to Netanyahu be any different?
Remember that demographically Israel is becoming less secular and liberal.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He won't stop 'til he's stolen the entire West Bank.
And Meretz is down to 4 seats.
American politics have never been as hopelessly militarist as Israeli politics are now.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Netanyahu is not planning to "steal the entire West Bank". That is ridiculous hyperbole. Almost of the West Bank population centers are in Area A which is under full civil and security control by the PA and contain no Israeli settlements whatsoever (Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, etc).
Meretz has five seats.
Israeli politics are not even close to the militarism of the US at any point in its history. There were tens of thousands of people killed in the Iraq in Afghanistan conflicts. The US launched actually nuclear weapons killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. Israel cannot touch the US as far as militarism in concerned.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Agenda, not Democracy .
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)However, starting with the election of Likud, whose attitude is "that's our f@cking land, our holy book says so"--the settlements were indeed an instrument of dominion.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)back in 1949, during the Conciliation Commission, Israel "offered" to let some small amount of refugees return, if the United Nations agreed to recognize the 1949 armistice lines as Israel's new international borders.
It was rejected, by the way.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)have a viable state within Israeli citizenry.
Yes: * After all, most Israelis are totally inured from the occupation and do not feel its effects.
K&R
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It would have been easy to pass off the occupied territories shortly after the 1967 war. Today and 600 000 new settlers later, it’s a little bit more difficult.
Israel’s democracy is in free fall, and soon, perhaps, Israel will become an apartheid state.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Very soon there will no reason for me to disagree with you anyway...
Aerows
(39,961 posts)"is trading its democracy, piece by piece, to maintain the occupation of the"
Our nation is doing the very same thing in the name of global corporations. Nestle corporation siphoning water out of CALIFORNIA for 25 years with no payment, no permit.
The US needs to wake up as badly as Israel needs to do the same.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)He writes:
There are, broadly speaking, two possible answers on the table for what Israel should do about its conflict with the Palestinians. One, pushed by the international community, is to strike a peace deal that would withdraw Israel from the occupied territories and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. The other, pushed by an Israeli far right that is a political minority but to which Netanyahu is electorally beholden, is to maintain permanent control of the territory or even annex it outright.
By "peace agreement" he means a real peace. And that's pretty much the Leftist understanding of the issue. Israel withdraws from the West Bank and allows a Palestinian state and there will be peace. There's just one problem. A peace agreement where Israel withdraws from the West Bank and allows a Palestinian state won't bring real peace, and most Israelis know it. They know that Abbas won't sign a peace agreement renouncing Right of Return. They know, because he's said so, that he won't sign an agreement whch declares the end of the conflict. I've had discussions about this with actual Palestinians, and there is at least a substantial majority who contend that withdrawal from the West Bank won't end the war. Mr. Fisher writes that most Israelis aren't enthusiastic about peace, but that isn't true. Everybody wants peace. The Israelis simply don't believe in a peace agreement, because they know that it won't bring them peace.
Conversely, the Right contends that if Israel withdraws from the West Bank, then there will be war. There's just one problem. Given the continued rise of nationalist and Islamist extremism in the Arab world and the weakening of Israeli society and Israel's international position because of the Occupation, then there's going to be a war anyway. Netanyahu claims (after the election) that he wants a Palestinian state that is willing to exist in peace with Israel. Maybe he is. (sarcasm folks). Real peace requires that the Palestinians and the larger Arab world accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state. Maybe most Israelis are just waiting for the Palestinians to give them a sign that that acceptance is forthcoming. If that's true, then they may as well be waiting for Godot. Mochiach will get here before the Palestinians accept a Jewish state. Especially as long as they are under the Occupation.
So the Left is wrong. Israel's choice isn't between giving up the West Bank and war. And the Right is wrong. Israel's choice isn't between holding on to the West Bank and war.
The Israelis' choice is which war they want to fight. Do they want to fight the war where everyone wonders what might have been if Israel withdrew from the West Bank? The war that is just one more in the long series of wars that have plagued the Middle East, with the promise that there will be another war after that? Or do they want to fight the war where it's absolutely brain numbingly clear that the war is not about the Occupation or there not being a Palestinian state? The key to resolution is clarity.
If Israel holds on to the West Bank, then there won't be peace at the end of the next war. If Israel allows a Palestinian state, then there is a good chance that there will be peace at the end of the next war.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)The threat of terrorism from the West Bank--as opposed to Gaza--is virtually nil.
The status quo is pretty damn good as far as Israelis are concerned--the occupation is succeeding in terms of deliverables.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)What they don't see is that the status quo can never be maintained. They don't gain security by holding on to the West Bank.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)their mind absent something to make them discontent with the status quo.
The perspective is that force, power, and control are the only things that can make one safe. Which explains their reaction to the Iran deal--if Iran doesn't capitulate and bow to the superior power and strength of the P+5, that invalidates it in their eyes.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)The proposed "peace agreement" won't bring peace. It will only set the stage for a new war. The Israelis know that, which is why they won't give up the West Bank. What they don't seem to understand is that they get war whether they give up the West Bank or not. So the choice is which war they want to fight.
And to be clear, it isn't written in stone that there will be war either way. It's just highly likely.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Discontent and upheaval, sure. But a Palestinian war against Israel isn't a given.
Border skirmishes with Hezbollah seem inevitable though.
