Three Views: Israel’s New Government and the Obama Administration
| WRMEA Archives 2006-2010 - 2009 April |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2009, pages 10-12
Three Views
Israel’s New Government and the Obama Administration
Israel Lurches Into Fascism
By Ali Abunimah
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Whenever Israel has an election, pundits begin the usual refrain that hopes for peace depend on the “peace camp”—formerly represented by the Labor party, but now by Tzipi Livni’s Kadima—prevailing over the anti-peace right, led by the Likud.
This has never been true, and makes even less sense as Israeli parties begin coalition talks after the Feb. 10 election. Yes, the “peace camp” helped launch the “peace process,” but it did much more to undermine the chances for a just settlement.
In 1993, Labor Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo accords. Ambiguities in the agreement—which included no mention of “self-determination” or “independence” for Palestinians, or even “occupation”—made it easier to clinch a short-term deal. But confrontation over irreconcilable expectations was inevitable. While Palestinians hoped the Palestinian Authority, created by the accord, would be the nucleus of an independent state, Israel viewed it as little more than a native police force to suppress resistance to continued occupation and colonial settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Collaboration with Israel has always been the measure by which any Palestinian leader is judged to be a “peace partner.” Rabin, according to Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, “never thought this [Oslo] will end in a full-fledged Palestinian state.” He was right.
Throughout the “peace process,” Israeli governments, regardless of who led them, expanded Jewish-only settlements in the heart of the West Bank, the territory supposed to form the bulk of the Palestinian state. In the 1990s, Ehud Barak’s Labor-led government actually approved more settlement expansion than the Likud-led government that preceded it headed by Binyamin Netanyahu.
Barak, once considered “dovish,” promoted a bloodthirsty image in the campaign, bolstered by the massacres of Gaza civilians he directed as defense minister. “Who has he ever shot?” Barak quipped derisively about Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the proto-fascist Yisrael Beiteinu party, in an attempt to paint the latter as a lightweight.
Today, Lieberman’s party, which beat Labor into third place, will play a decisive role in a government. An immigrant who came to Israel from the former Soviet republic of Moldova, Lieberman was once a member of the outlawed racist party Kach that calls for expelling all Palestinians.
Yisrael Beiteinu’s manifesto was that 1.5 million Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel (indigenous survivors or descendants of the Palestinian majority ethnically cleansed in 1948) be subjected to a loyalty oath. If they don’t swear allegiance to the “Jewish state” they would lose their citizenship and be forced from the land of their birth, joining millions of already stateless Palestinians in exile or in Israeli-controlled ghettos. In a move instigated by Lieberman but supported by Livni’s allegedly “centrist” Kadima, the Knesset recently voted to ban Arab parties from participating in elections. Although the high court overturned it in time for the vote, it is an ominous sign of what may follow.
Lieberman, who previously served as deputy prime minister, has a long history of racist and violent incitement. Prior to Israel’s recent attack, for example, he demanded Israel subject Palestinians to the brutal and indiscriminate violence Russia used in Chechyna. He also called for Arab Knesset members who met with officials from Hamas to be executed.
But it’s too easy to make him the bogeyman. Israel’s narrow political spectrum now consists at one end of the former “peace camp” that never halted the violent expropriation of Palestinian land for Jewish settlements and boasts with pride of the war crimes in Gaza, and at the other, a surging far-right whose “solutions” vary from apartheid to outright ethnic cleansing.
What does not help is brazen Western hypocrisy. Already the U.S. State Department spokesman affirmed that the Obama administration would work with whatever coalition emerged from Israel’s “thriving democracy” and promised that the U.S. would not interfere in Israel’s “internal politics.” Despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s sweet talk about a new relationship with the Arab world, few will fail to notice the double standard. In 2006, Hamas won a democratic election in the occupied territories, observed numerous unilateral or agreed truces that were violated by Israel, offered Israel a generation-long truce to set the stage for peace, and yet it is still boycotted by the U.S. and European Union. Worse, the U.S. sponsored a failed coup against Hamas and continues to arm and train the anti-Hamas militias of Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as Palestinian Authority president expired on Jan. 9. As soon as he took office, Obama reaffirmed this boycott of Palestinian democracy.
The clearest message from Israel’s election is that no Zionist party can solve Israel’s basic conundrum and no negotiations will lead to a two-state solution. Israel could only be created as a “Jewish state” by the forced removal of the non-Jewish majority Palestinian population. As Palestinians once again become the majority in a country that has defied all attempts at partition, the only way to maintain Jewish control is through ever more brazen violence and repression of resistance (see Gaza). Whatever government emerges is certain to preside over more settlement-building, racial discrimination and escalating violence.
There are alternatives that have helped end what once seemed like equally intractable and bloody conflicts: a South African-style one-person one-vote democracy, or Northern Ireland-style power-sharing. Only under a democratic system according rights to all the people of the country will elections have the power to transform people’s futures.
But Israel today is lurching into open fascism. It is utterly disingenuous to continue to pretend—as so many do—that its failed and criminal leaders hold the key to getting out of the morass. Instead of waiting for them to form a coalition, we must escalate the international civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to force Israelis to choose a saner path.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, <www.electronicintifada.net>, on which this posting first appeared Feb. 12, 2009, and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (available from the AET Book Club).
Grim Prospects Just Got Grimmer
By Neve Gordon
Israelis have had their say at the polls, and now it is up to the world, and particularly the Obama administration, to respond.
Thirty-three parties ran for the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), ranging from the well-known Kadima, Likud and Labor to a variety of lesser known parties that ran on an array of platforms from the rights of the disabled to legalizing cannabis. However, only 12 parties managed to garner enough votes to secure seats in the Knesset.
The incoming Knesset will have a solid right-wing bloc, made up of Likud with 27 seats, Yisrael Beiteinu with 15 seats, two ultra-Orthodox parties with 16 seats and two smaller nationalist parties with 7 seats. This bloc has four more than the 61-seat threshold needed to form a coalition.
The center bloc was able to muster 41 seats. This bloc consists of Kadima with 21 seats and Labor with 13 seats. The remaining 14 seats were won by liberal, leftist and Arab national parties.
The results clearly testify to the fact that a large majority of the elected politicians are against an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on the two-state solution.
Moreover, some parties have blatant neo-fascist tendencies. Yisrael Beiteinu, for example, ran under the banner of “no citizenship without loyalty,” and would like to strip any person who is critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians of their citizenship.
People like me.
While the devastating effects of these elections on internal Israeli politics may not concern the international community, their repercussions for Israel’s relations with its neighbors—not least the Palestinians—should certainly concern world leaders and specifically President Barack Obama, who has already declared that Middle East stability and peace are vital to U.S. interests.
Obama’s political vision has engendered hope not only in the United States but around the world. My expectation is that he will make good on his promise for change and introduce a courageous initiative that will finally bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians. He has both an opportunity and a responsibility to do so.
The opportunity has arisen as a result of over 18 years of political negotiations on the two-state solution (from the Madrid Conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis) as well as the publication of promising initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Arab Peace Initiative to the Nusseibeh and Ayalon Plan), which have clarified exactly what needs to be done in order to reach a peace settlement between the warring sides.
The two-state solution entails three central components:
- Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 border with possible one-per-one land swaps so that ultimately the total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.
- Jerusalem’s division according to the 1967 borders with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighborhoods. These two components entail the dismantling of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.
- The acknowledgment of the right of return of all Palestinians but with the following stipulation: While all Palestinians who so desire will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or, alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.
Obama’s responsibility arises from the fact that the only way to advance U.S. regional interests and to provide real security for the two peoples is by having Israelis and Palestinians sign a comprehensive agreement of this kind. Taking into account the results of the current Israeli elections, Obama will have to neutralize the rejectionists in order to resolve this bloody conflict once and for all.
With determination and political boldness he can do just that. His administration will need to adopt the following strategy:
First, the White House needs to draft a proposal using the above-mentioned guidelines.
Second, the draft proposal should be submitted to the two sides so that each one can suggest minor alterations.
Third, the Obama administration will have to hammer out a final proposal.
Finally, this proposal should be publicized, with the U.S. and international community applying pressure by declaring that the two parties will be rewarded if they support the initiative and penalized (economically and politically) if they do not.
The task might seem greater than it actually is, since ironically the majority of Jews (despite the elections) and Palestinians in the region support the two-state solution.
The deadlock has occurred because the Israeli political configuration has allowed a sizable minority of settlers and their sympathizers to block all past governments from making the necessary compromises. This deadlock, however, can be overcome if the international community, and particularly the United States, assumes a more interventionist role. And while intervention may be conceived by some as anti-Israeli, particularly if such intervention includes sanctions, it is the only way to secure Israel’s existence in the long run.
Obama should not therefore hesitate to compel the incoming government to adopt the two-state solution. This would be the genuine pro-Israeli stance.
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University. His new book, Israel’s Occupation, is due out this fall from the University of California Press. Copyright © 2009 The Nation. Distributed by Agence Global.
Netanyahu’s Three Strategies Against Obama
By Patrick Seale
Having been asked by Israel’s President Shimon Peres to form a government, Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, has until March 17 to try to put together a ruling coalition. Looming over his horse-trading with possible partners is the shadow of Barack Obama, America’s new president.
As he goes about his task, Netanyahu’s prime concern will be to find a way to defuse the threat from Obama, whose views about Iran, about the desirability of a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and about relations with the Muslim world in general, are diametrically opposed to his own.
Early indications suggest that Netanyahu will resort to three distinct strategies to reduce, evade and eventually dispel any likely pressure from Washington, especially on the Palestine question, to which, unlike Obama, he intends to give no priority whatsoever.
His first strategy will be to seek to cobble together a ‘moderate’ coalition of the Likud (27 seats), with Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima party (28 seats), and Ehud Barak’s much reduced Labor party (13 seats). Such a coalition could no doubt attract smaller factions, so as to produce a reasonably comfortable majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The only problem is that Tzipi Livni is demanding real decision-making powers in the coalition, which Netanyahu is unwilling to grant her, while Barak seems to think it wiser to rebuild his shattered party in opposition.
From Netanyahu’s perspective, a “moderate” coalition would be better able to neutralize pressure from Obama. The alternative would be a right, far-right and ultra-religious coalition of Likud with Avigdor Lieberman’s unashamedly racist Yisrael Beiteinu, and other hard-line factions. But such an extremist grouping would attract international opprobrium and further damage Israel’s image—already severely battered by the Gaza war. In Washington, Israel’s friends and lobbyists would be hard put to protect it against Obama.
Netanyahu’s second strategy might be to extend feelers to Syria in order to attempt to revive the indirect Israeli-Syrian talks, which Turkey has been mediating in recent months, but which Syria broke off because of the Gaza war. Syria might be inclined to agree to resume them as part of its current diplomatic campaign to improve its relations with the European Union and the United States.
In seeking to revive the Syrian track, Netanyahu’s main motive would be to provide him with a pretext for resisting American pressure to advance on the Palestinian track. The argument that it cannot focus on two tracks at the same time is one Israel has long used to prevent any move towards a comprehensive peace.
In any event, Netanyahu has no intention of meeting Syria’s bottom line demand—the return of the Golan Heights. Syria, in turn would have no real expectations from revived talks. It knows that it cannot consider reaching a peace agreement with Israel, unless there is substantial progress on the Palestinian track as well. So, if talks were eventually revived, there would be a good deal of cynicism on both sides, and no serious expectation of a favorable outcome.
Netanyahu’s third strategy in dealing with Obama is to play up the alleged danger from Iran and its nuclear program. It is his way of relegating the Palestinians’ political aspirations to a distant—very distant—horizon. Even as he accepted the task of attempting to form a government, Netanyahu lashed out at Iran.
There was no doubt, he declared, that Iran was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Israel was faced with its greatest threat since the creation of the state in 1948. Terrorist forces were gathering in the north—his reference to the Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon—and more in the same alarmist vein.
Whipping up hysteria about Iran has long been a familiar Netanyahu tactic. He is desperately anxious to prevent a U.S.-Iranian dialogue such as Obama has proposed, and to which Iran has reacted positively. The same scare tactic—the allegation that Saddam Hussain was acquiring weapons of mass destruction—was used by American pro-Israeli neocons in 2002 to push America into war with Iraq.
In February testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Admiral Dennis Blair, America’s director of national intelligence, predicted a confrontation this year between Israel and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment program. But few observers in Washington believe that Israel would dare launch an attack against Iran without an American green light—which the Obama administration would be most unlikely to give.
Instead, as London’s Daily Telegraph reported, Israel is using covert activities—sabotage, front companies, double agents, assassination—to disrupt Iran’s nuclear activities. According to the newspaper, Mossad is rumored to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top Iranian nuclear scientist at Isfahan’s uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances in 2007. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser and now an American elder statesman critical of Israel, has advised the United States and Iran to proceed to negotiations as soon as possible.
Netanyahu will need to act quickly and be highly resourceful if he is to dent Obama’s determination to turn a new page with Iran, promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, and build bridges with the entire Arab and Muslim world.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. Copyright © 2009 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global.
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