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Go Home Why the U.S. Should Support Palestinian Statehood at the...

JOHN JUDIS SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Why the U.S. Should Support Palestinian Statehood at the U.N.

BY JOHN B. JUDIS

The Obama administration, after failing to head off a Palestinian request to the Security Council for United Nations membership, is prepared to use its veto against it. In an undistinguished address to the General Assembly on Wednesday, President Barack Obama advised the Palestinians to bypass the UN and to confine their campaign for statehood to negotiations with Israel. Obama’s position would have made sense if the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had made generous offers at the negotiating table that the Palestinians have been spurning, but the Netanyahu government has not; and there is little likelihood, in the absence of a dramatic change of heart, that it will do so. By threatening a veto, Obama appeared to contradict his past support for Palestinian self-determination.

Since 1919, the United States has favored in principle, if not always in practice, the national self-determination of peoples. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush applied it to the Palestinians’ demand for a state of their own; and Obama has done so repeatedly. Given the breakdown in negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinians, and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, the U.S. could have reaffirmed its support for Palestinian self-determination by supporting Palestinian membership in the UN—or at the least, an orderly and imminent transition toward membership. That may not have been politically expedient, but it would have been politically just.

Moreover, it would have followed an important historical precedent. Behind Obama’s current stance lurks an unpleasant irony. In 1947, the United States faced a very similar situation in the UN and took exactly the opposite position—to the benefit of Palestine’s Jewish population. After World War I, the British had maneuvered the new League of Nations into granting them a mandate to rule Palestine, but in February 1947, after having failed to get the Jews and the Arabs to agree on a future state, the British threw the question of Palestine into the hands of the newly established United Nations. In May of that year, the General Assembly established a committee to make recommendations on resolving the conflict.

At the UN, the Arabs insisted, as they had in talks with the British, on a unitary Arab majority state, but officials from the Jewish Agency, representing Palestine’s Jews, argued for a partitioned Palestine. They looked to the United States for support, but the Truman administration was initially unwilling to give it. Within the Truman administration, some White House officials backed partition, but influential State Department and Pentagon officials held out the hope of bringing the Jews and Arabs together within a federation. In September of 1947, Truman decided to back the Zionist demand for a state in part of Palestine, and American representatives were able to win support within the committee and the General Assembly for a plan that within three years would have created two states and an internationalized Jerusalem. That didn’t establish at once a Jewish majority state, but was a very important step toward doing so.

The U.S. did, I believe, the right thing. Perhaps in 1919, there was not as strong a moral case for a Jewish-controlled state in a land inhabited primarily—about 90 percent—by Arab Muslims and Christians. (A case could be made for a homeland for the persecuted from Russia’s Pale of Settlement, but not necessarily for a state, and certainly not, as Zionists of the time advocated, a state that encompassed what would be Palestine and Jordan.) But the Nazi-led genocide in Central Europe that began in the 1930s and the restrictions that Western Europe, the United States, and the British Commonwealth nations placed on Jewish immigration made Palestine the only recourse for Europe’s Jews. By the end of World War II, there was a geographical and economic basis for a divided Palestine. Jews made up about 30 percent of the population and were concentrated in Jerusalem and on the coast. The Jews, with the Arabs opposed to negotiations and to Jewish immigration into Palestine, urged the UN to agree to partition, and the United States, after some hesitation, supported them.

Now the situation is reversed. After the 1967 war, Israel annexed Jerusalem, took control over the West Bank and Gaza, and began establishing settlements there in violation of the Geneva rules of war and in defiance of UN resolutions. Whatever their original purpose—and some of the earliest settlements had a rationale coming out of 1967 war—the settlements have evolved into an attempt by the Israelis to colonize land that is not theirs, to create incontrovertible facts on the ground that no treaty can contradict. There are now about 500,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In 1993, the PLO, which the UN acknowledges as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, recognized the existence of Israel, and since then negotiations have taken place fitfully, with both sides stalling, equivocating, and sending mixed signals. Certainly, in retrospect, Yasser Arafat should have been more forthcoming during the Camp David talks in 2000, but the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza had increased by 70 percent from 1993 to 2000, sowing considerable distrust among Palestinians. Subsequently the Arabs, with Hamas and other radical Islamist groups playing an important role, conducted a disastrous Second Intifada, to which the Israeli government responded by destroying much of the Palestinian governmental infrastructure created during the 1990s.

Still, the negotiations that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted from 2006 to 2008 managed to build upon the foundations that were established at Camp David and Taba in the last month of the Clinton administration, producing a basic set of proposals for a negotiated settlement. The deal would be based on the 1967 borders, the dismantling of the outposts, land swaps for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Palestinian control of East Jerusalem, and the virtual abandonment of the Palestinian right to return.

But the Netanyahu government, which took office in March 2009, refused from the beginning to build on these negotiations. Netanyahu took three months even to utter the phrase “Palestinian state,” and leaders of his Likud party, and members of his coalition, remain opposed to a Palestinian state. He insisted that negotiations start from scratch, refusing to agree even to the 1967 boundaries as a starting point. The Obama administration asked him to accept a freeze on settlement construction as a good faith gesture to Abbas and the Palestinians. He initially refused, and then acceded to a loophole-ridden temporary ten month freeze that his government proceeded to violate. And after the moratorium expired, Netanyahu has gone on a construction binge in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while concocting new conditions for a Palestinian state, including an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.

Abbas, backed by the United States, has asked the Israelis to maintain the freeze on settlements. That’s a perfectly reasonable demand and condition for negotiations. Increasing settlement construction during negotiations for a two-state solution is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire that you have promised to put out. When Netanyahu would not agree to stop construction, and when he refused to recognize the pre-1967 borders as a basis for negotiation, Abbas and the PLO gave up hope of a negotiated settlement, and sought the help of the United Nations in achieving recognition for their attempts to gain a state of their own. Whether or not this move turns out to have been tactically wise, the Palestinians were within their rights to take it.

The United Nations was founded to make good on the ideal of national self-determination. It’s in Article One of the UN Charter. It has done so at its very beginning with Indonesia and Jewish Palestine, as well as more recently in Southern Sudan. Why not Arab Palestine? And why should the United States block such an effort? I have heard some arguments for why the United States should not favor UN membership for Palestine, but they sound very much like arguments for why the United States should not favor a Palestinian state at all. Moreover, they are the sorts of arguments that easily could have been used in 1947 against UN support for a Jewish majority state.

The United States, it is said, should not assist Palestinians in gaining membership at the UN because some Palestinians still don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist. But guess what? In 1947, there were Zionists identified with the Revisionist movement (parts of which later came together to create Likud) who denied the right of Palestinians to a state. They wanted all of Palestine and even Jordan for a Jewish state; and some of them were willing to use terror and assassination to achieve their ends. And there are still many Israelis who deny the right of Palestinians to a state. That didn’t preclude our helping Palestine’s Jews achieve statehood through the UN, and it shouldn’t impede our helping the Palestinians.

By seeking to win statehood through UN recognition and assistance, the Palestinian leadership is visibly underscoring its commitment to a two-state solution; by doing that, and by rejecting a strategy based on terror and violence for one based on negotiation and multilateral assistance from the United Nations (which, again, was created to resolve exactly the kind of conflict that is occurring between the Israelis and the Palestinians), it is potentially marginalizing Hamas. By backing the Palestinians at the UN, the United States would be making good on its own commitment to a two-state solution achieved peacefully rather than through terror and violence.

Of course, one has to consider whether it would have been in America’s national interest to further the formation of a Palestinian state through the UN. I have heard arguments that if the Palestinians had gained UN recognition, that would have made the Netanyahu administration very angry and less amenable to negotiations. But if you believe that the Netanyahu government is already resistant to any meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians, then support for a Palestinian state at the UN would more likely have helped than hindered negotiations: After all, it was pressure from the United States and Europe after the first Gulf War in 1991 that led to the Madrid talks, which led eventually to the negotiations in Oslo between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Moreover, America’s standing in the world could only have been improved by being on the side of a Palestinian state. It would have removed an important talking point for Islamic radicals; it would have allied the United States with the reform forces of the Arab Spring, who, as has become clear in Egypt, are very critical of the continued Israeli occupation. American support could also have helped forestall the sort of explosive reaction among Arab publics that might follow rejection of the Palestinian bid in the Security Council. And backing Palestinian statehood would have put the United States in a position to work constructively with European and Middle Eastern countries, many of whom are hoping to see an end to the century-long standoff in Palestine and now Israel. Instead, Obama’s stand has made the United States an outlier in the region. We are identified not so much with Israel (which we have rightly defended against attack from other states), but with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and with the expansionist ambitions of the Israeli rightwing.

I recognize that it was very unlikely that the Obama administration would back the Palestinians at the UN. Well before this month, the Obama administration had begun to abandon its forthright advocacy of a Palestinian state. Its demand that the Israelis “stop” settlement activity had given way to a demand that the Netanyahu government “restrain” its expansion into the West Bank. And last February, Obama’s administration vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the Israelis for continuing to expand settlements in occupied territory. Why has it continued to back away? Well, it might have been a genuine change of conviction, but it might have also been, as Thomas Friedman has suggested, re-election pressures on a politically embattled presidency.  

As far as the Palestinians’ UN bid was concerned, there are very powerful lobbies contending for the title “pro-Israel” that have opposed the Palestinians’ efforts at the UN.   They include not only AIPAC, but also J-Street, which began as a bold alternative to AIPAC, but has ended up mimicking its subservience to Israeli aims. There is also strong opposition from rightwing Christian groups who support a greater Israel. The Republican Study Committee is circulating a proposal to recognize Israeli annexation of the West Bank in response to the U.N. granting membership to a Palestinian state. Republican presidential candidates (who probably could have cared less twenty years ago) are denouncing Obama for “throwing Israel under the bus” (Romney) and “appeasement” (Perry). That bears out how crazy American politics have become—and not just on debts and the deficit.    

Still, if the Obama administration had wanted to do what is right, and not what would spare it the slings and arrows of its domestic critics, it should not have rebuffed the Palestinians for appealing to the UN. The U.S. did the right thing in 1947. Why not have done it in 2011?

John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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76 comments

Mr. Judis you and Mr. Cohn are why I still subscribe to this magazine. Thank you.

- Neurobass8

September 28, 2011 at 12:56am

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The problem is, Comrade Judis, that half of the Palestinian leadership, the openly Islamofascist Hamas, is open in its advocacy of the destruction of the state of Israel. The other half is for coexistence with Israel when it is addressing Western audience and all Heil Hitler when it is addressing its base. I suspect that for for a neo-Marxist like John Judis anti-western sentiments trump any concerns over a second Holocaust in the Middle East. ironically Marx was pro-Western, even to the point of supporting the British role in India. I guess "Marxism" ain't what she used to be. The love of affair of the left with Islam proves what I have long contended. Leftism isn't about human rights and human progress. It is about a nihilistic war on (what is left of) Western civilization.

- bulbman1066

September 28, 2011 at 1:07am

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Judis' hero Karl Marx was an anti-Semite. So Judis might plausibly deny that his advocacy of the genocide of the Jews in Israel is inconsistent with his ideology in at least one respect. Left-liberalism is totalitarianism with a (false) human face.

- bulbman1066

September 28, 2011 at 1:44am

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JBJ writes: "Obama’s position would have made sense if the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had made generous offers at the negotiating table that the Palestinians have been spurning, but the Netanyahu government has not; " Netanyahu said this week they will recognize a Palestinian state IF they will denounce the violence and recognize Israel's right to exist. That must be what Obama was referring to... Not too unreasonable, really

- seattleeng

September 28, 2011 at 3:26am

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The Left's hatred of Israel is part and parcel of its contempt for honest human achievement, and its glorification of losers who lack the character to make anything of themselves.

- bulbman1066

September 28, 2011 at 4:05am

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Judis get's it right here. Excellent writing. It continues to astonish me how little recognition there is amongst Israel's supporters in this country of the parallels between the Zionist bid for statehood in 1947 and the Palestinian one now that Judis aptly explains here. It further astonishes me that there is almost no recognition given to the almost certain reality that, by giving the Palestinian population something definite in which to invest their energy and replacing the nebulous aspirations to a perennially denied statehood with something that can and must be defended within the scope of the international system, recognition changes the "facts on the ground" to Israel's long term benefit, as well as the Palestinians'. Of course the Palestinians have not approached their quest for recognition always within international acceptable norms. Obviously there are and will be for a long time to come, Palestinians who deny the historical reality of Israel. Shame on them. But the power dynamics utterly favor Israel here - a radical minority in Palestine cannot destroy or even seriously threaten Israel, and the creation of a state increases enormously the Palestinian Authority's own interest in suppressing violence and terrorism (the means by which some Palestinians continue to foolishly undercut a move to normalcy) even as it extinguishes Israel's ability to continue to settle the West Bank (the means by which Israel continues to signal its own intent to undercut a move to normalcy). Given that Netanyahu could stop settlements and does not, it is difficult form me not to conclude that his government has no interest in actual peace on terms acceptable to the world at large. By acting generously from its position of strength vis-a-vis the Palestinians, Israel and the US could shift the entire grounds of discussion in the Middle East by not standing in the way of recognition at the UN. The rise of populist government in Egypt and across the Middle East that will not automatically renew the power politics detente that has served Israel well for the last 20 decades makes this more, not less urgent. That neither Israel or the US recognized these dynamics and so continue to block statehood for Palesting will, I suspect, only redound to Israel's own disadvantage over time.

- IowaBeauty

September 28, 2011 at 7:07am

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At this point it's just the timing that's off, which is deeply unfortunate. The argument has already been made that Netanyahu is not truly interested in a two-state solution, since that's just not in his short-term political interest and he wouldn't be able to lord it over 70% of Congress like he does now.

- chaitless

September 28, 2011 at 7:28am

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Absolutely correct. The Palestinians resort to the international legal machinery established as an alternative to violence. Israel objects and drags the US into interfering with its veto. The relationship between Israel and the US is a very sorry affair, for the United States at least and, ultimately, I believe, for Israel as well. It is destined to fail at some point as the price to the US for its unqualified support for Israel gets too high. That will be a shocking day for Israel. It ought to be building its future on long-term geopolitical realities rather than on its current ability to manipulate internal US politics.

- roidubouloi

September 28, 2011 at 8:02am

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Jerusalem is NOT a settlement, and any reference to "east" Jerusalem are obscene because that is only an armistice line from Jordan's genocidal attack on Jews whose families had been living in Jerusalem for centuries. I can not believe the Democrats want to make Jerusalem a major campaign issue in 2012, but that is exactly what is happening with this lumping Jewish neighborhoods like Ramat Shlomo (NORTH Jerusalem) and Gilo (SOUTH Jerusalem) in with Jewish "settlements" in Judea and Samaria.

- K2K

September 28, 2011 at 10:19am

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"Discourse" means among other things a universe of standard arguments that can get trotted out to justify one's fundamental point of view on a given issue. Those who agree with Judis have had their say reflected in his arguments. Those reading him, while they are reading him, can immediately bring to mind what they would argue in response. Some will so respond. So a lot of this boils down to a lot of unchanging talk, talk, talk, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I'd like to see some fresh thinking on these issues.

- basman

September 28, 2011 at 11:16am

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"parallels between the Zionist bid for statehood in 1947 and the Palestinian one now" You ignore a critical difference. The Zionist bid for statehood, and the Yishuv leading to it, were about providing a benefit to the Jewish people with any cost incurred by the local Arabs being a cost of that acquisition. The quest for a Palestinian state has always been about rolling back the benefits accrued to the Jews with any benefit to the Palestinian people being beside the point. The demand for a Palestinian is nothing more than a justification for acquiring the means to eradicate Israel. If it wasn't, why was the PLO founded in 1964?

- sighthnd

September 28, 2011 at 11:23am

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JBJ - What was the loophole riddled 10 month freeze that Netanyahu agreed to? Abu Mazen did not come to the negotiating table until the end. Why? If by giving the Palestinians a state the rocket fire would stop and Israeli security would be assured Netanyahu would agree to the '67 borders without land swaps. This is a security issue. Not one of apartheid.

- yehuda1984

September 28, 2011 at 11:32am

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"In 1947, there were Zionists identified with the Revisionist movement (parts of which later came together to create Likud) who denied the right of Palestinians to a state ... and some of them were willing to use terror and assassination to achieve their ends." And when they tried to bring in arms to advance their ends, the Hagganah sank their ships. The Palestinian equivalent of those extremists Jews is the Palestinian government today. And that government reacts to its subjects who attempt to thwart the terror by killing them.

- sighthnd

September 28, 2011 at 11:36am

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sighthnd, The non-Jewish population of the region that became Israel would certainly dispute your argument that the costs of Zionism were expected to be born entirely by the Zionist settlers. Zionism was undeniably about the establishment of a Jewish state, in a region that had overall a minority Jewish population - and that largely of immigrants, not of populations long settled in the region. Whatever you think about the rightness of the Zionist program, the notion that the establishment of a Zionist state did not directly and significantly impact the non-Jewish population - who had emerging nationalist notions of their own in the wind down of the Ottoman empire - is an extremely biased reading of history. But all of that is almost beside the point - Israel's interests are better served by a Palestinian state invested in the maintenance of that state, than in stateless residents trying be noticed and recognized. Again, Israel is the stronger side in every respect in these negotiations. Arguments made from the notion that a state in the West Bank represents an existential threat to the most robust economy, strongest military, and only nuclear weapons state in the region are fantastic.

- IowaBeauty

September 28, 2011 at 12:50pm

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...Again, Israel is the stronger side in every respect in these negotiations. Arguments made from the notion that a state in the West Bank represents an existential threat to the most robust economy, strongest military, and only nuclear weapons state in the region are fantastic... Consider asymmetric warfare, for instance, from an untethered West Bank state that might go the way of Gaza and have ever improving rockets courtesy of Iran reining down on Israeli cities, towns and infrastructure mere metres away.

- basman

September 28, 2011 at 12:58pm

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IowaBeauty, I believe there a time in the 19c when Iowa was majority non white.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa#Trade_and_Indian_removal.2C_1814-1832 Why is it legal for whites in Iowa to remove it native population? In mandate Palestine at least Jews didn't in spite of Arab propaganda ethnically cleanse the area of Arabs. There are more than a million Arabs living in Israel. I am for a two State solution but we don't need to get back to pre 1948 history. If you do so in this case you need to do in every other case in which peoples established States. I would suggest that you look at your State before you throw stones at other Countries.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 1:49pm

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"I recognize that it was very unlikely that the Obama administration would back the Palestinians at the UN." Yes, and your article is an exercise in futility. You are just writing it to show the NY Times that you are on "the right side of this issue." Having said this I don't like, as I keep repeating, Netanyahu's policies. And do hope for a negotiated two State solution and soon.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 1:52pm

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"The Palestinians resort to the international legal machinery established as an alternative to violence. Israel objects and drags the US into interfering with its veto." Not all problems will be solved by "international legal machinery." I don't hold with turning law into a kind of religion. Law is not a substitute for morality, nor is it an alternative to politics, especially political power. Law is especially not a substitute for political reality. Netanyahu is a fool. He thinks that because he has Obama on his side and can veto the Palestinian Arab demand for a State that he has won. I agree with those who say that it's not in Israel's interest to set one up, especially through negotiations. Short of that there will major trouble in he region which is not in Israel's interest.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 2:17pm

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I'm amazed at the number of distortions in this article, many of them made by leaving out material called for by the context. One example: After mentioning Olmert's generous offer, does Judis mention Abbas's ignoring it? No, he goes right to Netanyahu. If Netanyahu, and Israelis in general, were as unaware of a mass of recent historical facts as the article is, the picture would indeed look very different. This article by itself makes me lose respect for Judis, whose work on US politics and history I've respected in the past.

- yerubal

September 28, 2011 at 2:18pm

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Any way, שנה טובה to those who observe the holiday's.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 2:19pm

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The non-legal means of bringing Israel's occupation and usurpation of the Palestinians to a close is war, symmetric, asymmetric. If Israel were not bent on keeping Palestinian land this war would be over and there would be the chance to build a peace. Israel wants the Palestinians' land more than it wants peace. All the professions to peace are but lies and propaganda. If it wanted peace, it would welcome a Palestinian state as a means of drawing the Palestinians deeper into the regime of international norms and responsibilities. It opposes because it wants to keep the ability to hold statehood hostage until the Palestinians surrender theor land to Israel.

- roidubouloi

September 28, 2011 at 2:36pm

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Arnon, I did not introduce the 1948 history to the discussion, it was in the original article to which I was responding, and in sighthnd's comment. In any case, I don't see any way Israel or any support of Israel can credibly ignore the comparison. Disagree with Judis' and my interpretation, sure, but to consider it irrelevant is preposterous. As for Iowa and it's non-white population - give me a break. I don't know where you would find a thoughtful informed person who would consider the occupation - basically theft - of most of North America from its native inhabitants by Europeans - Iowa included - as either legal (except in the sense that there was no international law governing such things), or moral. It wasn't. I'm well aware I live on land stolen within the last 200 years. But that theft is an historical fact, and it's not going to be reversed. Ditto, Israel's occupation of the land within the 1967 borders. Whether you think it was theft, spoils of war, or historically justified homecoming, it's a done deal. I have no brief for anyone (including Palestinian radicals) who propose to reverse it. If you read what I wrote, I didn't dispute in anyway Israel's existence or right to its borders. I merely disputed sighthnd's claim that the Zionist program pre-independence somehow was intended to impose no serious cost on the non-Jewish population of Palestine. Saying that is roughly - to borrow your frame of reference - equivalent to saying that if the Lakota had just agreed to European insistence that they settle down and become farmers in a capitalist, property-owning state, that would have imposed no cost on them. I am trying to make a point about Israel's best interest. Disagree if you want. By all means point out the flaws in my reasoning. But don't turn my argument into something anti-Israeli.

- IowaBeauty

September 28, 2011 at 3:16pm

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"Israel wants the Palestinians' land more than it wants peace." This is certainly true of some members of Netanyahu's coalition and the PM is too much in love with his job to challenge them. "If Israel were not bent on keeping Palestinian land this war would be over and there would be the chance to build a peace." I don't think that Israel should keep the land, but it is delusional to think giving up the land in itself will being peace. Problem as I see it is that the Netanyahu's government thinks that the status-quo is to their advantage. They are dead wrong.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 3:37pm

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"As for Iowa and it's non-white population - give me a break. I don't know where you would find a thoughtful informed person who would consider the occupation - basically theft - of most of North America from its native inhabitants by Europeans - Iowa included - as either legal (except in the sense that there was no international law governing such things), or moral. It wasn't. I'm well aware I live on land stolen within the last 200 years. But that theft is an historical fact, and it's not going to be reversed." But the point is Europeans are not in danger of being killed by Indians the way Israelis are by Arabs. In any case, Jews are an indigenous people in the Middle East and hence have more of a right to the land than the Europeans to Iowa. Besides a majority of Israel come from Arab countries from which they were ethnically cleansed. Historically, Arabs living there also came as conquerors. The ideology of colonizer and colonized doesn't apply to the conflict. And no, Israel's fight against terrorism is not analogous to the one the US is engaged in.

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 3:44pm

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We don't face an existential threat as Israel does, but we do face being killed by Islamic terrorists: "Federal authorities today arrested and charged a 26-year-old Ashland man with plotting to damage the Pentagon and US Capitol with a remote-controlled aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives. Rezwan Ferdaus, a US citizen, was also charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically to al-Qaida, in order to carry out attacks on US soldiers stationed overseas, the US attorney’s office said in a statement. He apppeared for an initial status hearing today in US District Court in Worcester. Prosecutors are seeking that he be detained without bail. A hearing will be held in the next few days. “The conduct alleged today shows that Mr. Ferdaus had long planned to commit violent acts against our country,” US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said. “Thanks to the diligence of the FBI and our many other law enforcement partners, that plan was thwarted.” She added, “I want the public to understand that Mr. Ferdaus’ conduct, as alleged in the complaint, is not reflective of a particular culture, community or religion. In addition to protecting our citizens from the threats and violence alleged today, we also have an obligation to protect members of every community, race, and religion against violence and other unlawful conduct.”" http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/09/feds-agents-charge-ashland-man-with-targeting-pentagon-capitol-with-aerial-explosives/ECftBKY6IX6HQif2DlDiNN/index.html

- arnon

September 28, 2011 at 3:49pm

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Arnon, With all due respect, you're arguing with yourself here. You introduced Iowa and Native Americans as analogy; now you're saying it doesn't apply. Fine, you win. I won't bother to respond to colonizer vs colonized, Arab conquerers, and the majority of Israeli's being from Arab states. Feel free to shoot them down on your on behalf as well. Anything to say about the point I'm actually making?

- IowaBeauty

September 28, 2011 at 4:37pm

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"I don't think that Israel should keep the land, but it is delusional to think giving up the land in itself will being peace." It is Israel that refuses to put this "delusion" to the test, because it is afraid that the Palestinians might in fact make peace on this basis, and Israel wants the land, not peace. It thinks it can afford not to have peace and thereby keep the land. It may take a long time, but this will prove to have been a very foolish bet.

- roidubouloi

September 28, 2011 at 5:41pm

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The idea (not the "ideology") of Israel does apply to the conflict because Israel is explicitly, by its own law, occupying the West Bank. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is settling in territory that belongs to its inhabitants, the Palestinians, whether they are a state or not. Hence, Israel is colonizing them. We in fact colonized North America although there was not state there as we understand it. But that was before Israel and most of the rest of the world signed the Fourth Geneva Convention. We do not live in the 18th century. There was slavery then too. No one today thinks that Israel could enslave the Palestinians because it came into occupation of the territory in legal self-defense.

- roidubouloi

September 28, 2011 at 5:45pm

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The idea (not the "ideology") of colonization does apply to the conflict because Israel is explicitly, by its own law, occupying the West Bank. (Sigh)

- roidubouloi

September 28, 2011 at 5:56pm

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Can someone describe the Likud's ultimate objective? Amidst the invective of who's more at fault and who's got the greater right to what, it's hard to understand how this ends. With the US effectively stepping out of the picture, Israel's expropriation of the remaining land is inevitable (not least because the Likud charter is explicit about no sovereign Palestinian state west of the Jordan). What's to be done with the Palestinians? Israel's not going to make them citizens. Forced emigration? Expulsion? Subjugation in perpetuity?

- gkjames

September 28, 2011 at 6:28pm

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Can someone describe the Likud's ultimate objective? Amidst the invective of who's more at fault and who's got the greater right to what, it's hard to understand how this ends. With the US effectively stepping out of the picture, Israel's expropriation of the remaining land is inevitable (not least because the Likud charter is explicit about no sovereign Palestinian state west of the Jordan). What's to be done with the Palestinians? Israel's not going to make them citizens. Forced emigration? Expulsion? Subjugation in perpetuity?

- gkjames

September 28, 2011 at 6:28pm

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based on a quick scan of the comments, perhaps the palestinians can divide into tribes where gambling and tax-free sale of cigarettes are legal on their "reservations". Sure working out very well for many Native American tribes since they got their lawfare strategy finessed. not like any other Arab or Islamic nation-state wants the palestinians as citizens, not even majority-palestinian Jordan wants any more of them. pesky habit of violence... when they do not get what they want.

- K2K

September 28, 2011 at 7:34pm

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"The Left's hatred of Israel is part and parcel of its contempt for honest human achievement, and its glorification of losers who lack the character to make anything of themselves." Bulbman - you know, if you actually had an argument, rather than trite ad hominem attacks, you'd be a lot more interesting a contributor here. This is just bullshit, and not even well-dressed bullshit. Most of the people I know and work with would be hard lefties by your thinking, and I frankly don't know many people who work harder, or who routinely contribute more to making the world work than many of these lefties. And by "making the world work," I mean: making sure that your phone actually connects to another phone when you dial it; making sure that shipments get from their origin to destination rapidly and efficiently; making sure you can deposit and withdraw money from bank accounts; making sure there will be new drugs tomorrow for diseases that are not yet curable, finding buried fossil energy, breeding new plants, saving lives in hospitals. Yes, my work touches all of these industries, and I know people in all of them. They are professionals, they work long - even brutally long in some cases - hours, and a great many of them are liberals by any standard. Take away the "honest human achievement" of liberals, and your whole freakin' world would grind to a halt because of half it wouldn't work anymore. (The same would be true if you took away all conservatives' achievements, which I readily acknowledge - hard work and brains are not ideologically determined). And for the record, I don't hate Israel either. Some of my best colleagues are Israeli. I don't agree with Israeli policies, and I don't think they're even acting in their own best interest quite often, but that's a long way from "hating" anyone. You, on the other hand, clearly have a lot of hate ....

- IowaBeauty

September 28, 2011 at 7:56pm

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Someday, someone will have to tell me how continued settlement expansion results in anything productive. Maybe it satisfies some internal political expediencies for the Israeli coalition government. But as far as furthering the prospects for a potential agreement with the Palestinians, how is it anything but counterproductive? What does Israel have to lose by having a real freeze, regardless of whether it gets the Palestinians to serious talks or not?

- dsimon

September 28, 2011 at 10:42pm

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Judis is a piece of you know what! He re writes history! Omits history! Britain was given a mandate over Palestine to set up a home for the Jews in it. They never did and in fact tried to prevent it. During the Shoa they prevented Jews from escaping to Palestine. After this they put Jewish survivors in British concentration camps on Cyprus. Remember The Exodus? Then in 1948 a British operative by the name of John Glubb who called himself "Glubb Pasha" set of a siege of Jerusalem that would have put medieval sieges to shame. Jews died by the minute trying to save Jerusalem. Judea and Samaria was cleansed of any Jews as was the old part of the city of Jerusalem. Up to that time Jerusalem was one city with a crushing Jewish majority. It was liberated and reunified in 1967. Jordan controlling Judea and Samaria could have declared a Palestinian state but didn't because "The Palestinian" nation was not yet invented. This should be the start of a discussion. Then there is one more little detail. If the US is for self determination to the point of giving a Palestine to a newly minted nation what about the Kurd's who were promised their Kurdistan in the 1920's? Their history starts with human history. What about the same for Tibetans? So why are the Palestinians at the head of the line? Here is the answer: Every time you travel and have to pass inspection, thank the PLO. Security at the Olympics? Again thank the PLO who murdered 11 Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics... Can Kurds and Tibetans learn from the PLO if they really want their Kudistan and Tibet?

- Poupic

September 29, 2011 at 6:36am

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The problem, Oh Navel, is that all of the history you recite is irrelevant. Judis understands this. Given that history in its entirety was exactly as you describe, with no pertinent fact omitted and nothing distorted, none of it leads to the conclusion that the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank (or Gaza) have lost their human right not to be colonized by an occupier. That human right exists whether the occupation is itself legal or illegal. You might as well argue that the history entitles Israel to enslave them or exterminate them. As much as Israel may yearn to have conquered and occupied the West Bank in the 17th century, when the world and the law of war were different, it didn't. That too is history. Israel is a party to the Fourth Geneva Convention in the present, and was in 1967.

- roidubouloi

September 29, 2011 at 7:20am

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roi: "all of the history you recite is irrelevant." Agreed. So someone's great great grandfather did such and such to someone else's great great grandfather. So what? What does that have to do with two teenagers today? Why should the actions of ancestors, many of whom are long gone, control the actions of the present? If some people lived in a land 2,000 years ago, but another people lived there 75 years ago, why should one be given priority over another? And why should either be given priority over those who are living where they are right now? We are where we are. The participants have to learn to live together (or at least side by side) or fight eternally. I'd choose the former. But if people continue to let the animosities of the past determine their actions in the present, we'll get the latter.

- dsimon

September 29, 2011 at 10:47am

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dsimon: There is a need for restorative justice that International law simply cannot solve short of creating the circumstances in which one people can drive another people away, one way or another. International law, the way it is interpreted today (as reflected in roi's position), inclines towards Palestinian grievances and demands. If those are addressed in strict obedience to International Law, Israel will find itself greatly diminished, weakened, endangered. If Israel succumbs to pressures to give in on its security red lines, historical attachment to the land, the specific nature of the state of the Jews, why would Jewish Israelis want to remain? It is much better and safer to be a despised minority in the US or Europe than it is in the middle East these days. Let's put considerations of historical justice aside by all means and let's deal with the consequences of allowing the Palestinians all that they are asking for (it seems that they are allowed their historical justice). Let's look at the very real implications of these concessions to Israel's Jewish population. (For an indication I suggest you look at the Palestinian Charter which is a document based on the perfect International legality of the Palestinian cause). And then let's tell Israelis that they are intransigent and war mongerers for not accepting "Internaltional Law" as the arbiter of their fate.

- noga1

September 29, 2011 at 12:14pm

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"At the UN, the Arabs insisted, as they had in talks with the British, on a unitary Arab majority state, but officials from the Jewish Agency, representing Palestine’s Jews, argued for a partitioned Palestine." Judis is trying to change the historical record: "The 1937 Peel Commission proposal. A British Royal Commission led by Lord Peel examined the Palestine question beginning late in 1936. Its report, published in July 1937, recommended the creation of a small Jewish state in a region less than 1/5 of the total area of Palestine. The remainder was to be joined to Transjordan except for some parts, including Jerusalem, that would remain under British control. The Arab population in the Jewish areas was to be removed, by force if necessary, and vice versa, although this would mean the movement of far more Arabs than Jews. The Zionist leaders accepted the proposal, while the Arab leadership rejected the proposal outright. Two more partition plans were also considered: Plan B (map) and Plan C (map). It all came to nothing, as the British government had shelved the proposal altogether by the middle of 1938. In February 1939, the St. James Conference convened in London, but the Arab delegation refused to formally meet with its Jewish counterpart or to recognize them. The Conference ended on March 17, 1939 without making any progress. On May 17, 1939, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate was abandoned in favor of Jews and Arabs sharing one government and put strict quotas on further Jewish immigration. Due to impending World War II and the opposition from all sides, the plan was dropped." (wiki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_a_Palestinian_state If you can't make a case based on verifiable facts, just invent new facts and records to fit your argument. What exactly is he doing , I wonder? Seeking to take his place in historical glory as making his own contribution to the dismantling the only Jewish state in the world?

- noga1

September 29, 2011 at 2:18pm

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“It is Israel that refuses to put this "delusion" to the test, because it is afraid that the Palestinians might in fact make peace on this basis, and Israel wants the land, not peace. It thinks it can afford not to have peace and thereby keep the land. It may take a long time, but this will prove to have been a very foolish bet.” This is true of the Netanyahu government. It wasn’t true either of Olmert’s government or of the Ehud Barak government. My view is that both sides are equally determined at this time not to enter negotiations and each side is giving the other side excuses not to do so. What was true mostly of the Palestinian under Arafat has become true of both sides, now. With the Palestinian Arabs it’s important to ask if the Arab world will allow them to make peace. Both sides need to be pressured to enter into negotiations, but many leading Arab States need to be pressured to endorse these negotiations.

- arnon

September 29, 2011 at 5:47pm

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“The idea (not the "ideology") of colonization does apply to the conflict because Israel is explicitly, by its own law, occupying the West Bank.” I disagree. As has been noticed by a number of historians Israel acquired an “empire” inadvertently. It didn’t set out to conquer Arab territory in order to build settlements there. For a decade or so after 67 it hardly built any settlements it during the 80’s that Israeli Jews started to build there in a big way. Of course Begin and the right wing always so the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) as Jewish and encouraged Israelis to live there. But here is the rub; Israel differs from the 19c colonization project of the West in that it didn’t acquire territory to which they had no historical connection. Now, that doesn’t make justify building settlements on the West Bank, but it does mean that Israel is not a “colonial State.”

- arnon

September 29, 2011 at 5:55pm

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noga1 (Come on; it's silly to refer to the Palestinian charter but never the Likud's.) Assuming you're right as to law, morality, history -- and who's in a position to to argue; Israel outguns the neighborhood -- what's always missing from the discussion is what happens next. If Jews' assumptions about the Arabs' murderous intentions are correct, and given the immutability of geography, what's to negotiate? It would be irresponsible for any Israeli leader to commit the Jews to mortal danger. Ergo, to say that it's "peace" that'll be negotiated is to lapse into incoherence. Peace with whom? The recalcitrant population that's in the way of coveted land? But those people are in no position to negotiate anything given that Israel not only holds all the cards, but insists -- as a precondition -- on continuing to hold all the cards in perpetuity. What tangible thing do the Palestinians have that they can give the Jews? Nothing. All they can provide is some inchoate satisfaction in the form of what, surrender? Acknowledgment? Appreciation? Assuming Israel got all three, what would Israel's response be, given the starting assumption about Arab intentions? As the Likud charter says, no sovereign state west of the Jordan -- ever. This tells us that there'll be no Palestine, despite Israel's insistence that the Palestinians come talk about exactly that (a dynamic that, at its core, is perverse). In any event, that still leaves the people. What's Israel's plan for them?

- gkjames

September 29, 2011 at 6:16pm

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I think I agree with you that peace is not really an option, with the Palestinians refusing to accept the UN partitioning resolution. 64 years later and they are still talking about their claim to the whole of "Palestine", including their leaders and official representatives. How can you make peace with such a neighbour? If they get their statehood through a UN resolution, they have very little intention of considering the matter at an end. They will have got their WB Palestine but the Palestinian "refugees" who will continue to demand their right of return: http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2011/09/greater-goal.htm "The message carried by Abbas Zaki, Fatah Central Committee Member, is not new: in this or another form it was repeated since Arafat's times. With an entertaining addendum you cannot miss: Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself."

- noga1

September 29, 2011 at 7:40pm

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http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2011/09/greater-goal.html

- noga1

September 29, 2011 at 7:41pm

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palestinian SURRENDER would be a good starting point. they lost, but refuse to admit this for all eternity because I guess they just can not believe that Jews decided ENOUGH! Next year in Jerusalem for real, for Jews, for Christians, for anyone who is not taught from infancy that Jews are to be murdered. ok, still recovering from seeing the film "The Debt" this afternoon.

- K2K

September 29, 2011 at 8:43pm

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How was it? I was going to see it this week but something came up.

- noga1

September 29, 2011 at 9:19pm

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If what noga writes here is characteristic of the view of Israelis, it is that much more clear that it is Israel that will not accept the UN partition, even after the Arabs have conceded all those parts of the original Arab partition west of the Green Line. They have accepted the principle of peace based on the Green Line. Israel will not. It insists on claiming even more Arab land based on "historical attachment to the land." The whole point of partition was that both sides claimed the entirety and both sides would get less than the entirety. It is not the Arabs who now demand more, but Israel. All of the moaning about Arab maps that do not show Israel and the aspirations expressed in the PLO charter are absurd given that Israel refers not to Palestine but to Judea and Samaria and the charter of the Likud insists upon Israeli sovereignty everywhere west of the Jordan and insists, conversely, that there can be no Arab sovereignty there. In 1948, it was the Arabs who would not accept the principle of partition. Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Arabs have finally accepted the principle; Israel under the Likud does not. That is a prescription for endless war. ___________________ Whether Israel acquired its "empire" advertently or inadvertently, in self-defense or not, has no bearing at all on the illegality of settlement, that is, of colonization. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population into occupied territory, settling it, even though the military occupation is itself legal because the outcome of defensive war. Israel as the right to maintain its occupation until the Arabs do what is necessary to assure Israel's security. It has no right to settle the land it is occupying. It really is that simple. Israeli compliance with this human rights obligation would in no way weaken it or jeopardizes its security because the prohibition against settling occupied territory has no relevance at all to the permitted scope of military occupation for purposes of security. Israel can do what is necessary for its security for as long as necessary without running afoul of international law, as long as it sticks to security. There is nothing about incorporation of the illegal settlements that is necessary or even beneficial for Israel's security. The constant Israeli ploy, which we see again above, is to attempt to conflate its appetite for Palestinian land with Israel's legitimate security requirements so as to make it appear that annexation of the settlements is a security issue. It is not. Israel will not be any weaker without the settlements, but it will have to accept an Arab sovereign west of the Jordan.

- roidubouloi

September 29, 2011 at 10:52pm

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"Whether Israel acquired its "empire" advertently or inadvertently, in self-defense or not, has no bearing at all on the illegality of settlement, that is, of colonization." I am not arguing about the legality or illegality of the issue, merely how it came about the Israel has some settlements in parts of the West Bank. "There is nothing about incorporation of the illegal settlements that is necessary or even beneficial for Israel's security." I wasn't arguing this point neither. I happen to think that the settlements have become a burden and are not beneficial to Israel either militarily nor economically. My only point was that it's not useful to talk about these settlements as if they were part of an Israeli or Jewish colonial enterprise. I still believe that Netanyahu's term inf office will not exceed his the scheduled elections. I doubt he will re-elected.

- arnon

September 29, 2011 at 11:12pm

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An interesting article in a Turkish online newspaper about Erdogan: "Sultans and numbers" http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=sultans-and-numbers-2011-09-29

- arnon

September 29, 2011 at 11:33pm

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I saw The Debt about two weeks ago. I was surprised in a positive way by the film -- it's a heck of a lot tougher and more visceral (in various senses) than I was expecting. Am I right in thinking there was an earlier Israeli film with the same story? If so, what was that original version like?

- ironyroad

September 30, 2011 at 12:19am

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noga1: "There is a need for restorative justice that International law simply cannot solve short of creating the circumstances in which one people can drive another people away, one way or another." So how far back to we go? Which time period gets priority, and why? According to Jewish history, the Israelis were hardly the original people in that region; they kicked out another group to establish their own "historical" ties to the land. And anyway, why should great great grandchildren be punished, or benefit, for what their ancestors did over which they had no say or control? Political turmoil and persecution forced many to leave their homes in Europe and come here, including some of my ancestors, but I don't think I have any "restorative justice" right to go back even if I wanted to. There have to be some time limits on these things that enable us to deal with problems in the here and now, or problems will just never be solved. "Let's put considerations of historical justice aside by all means and let's deal with the consequences of allowing the Palestinians all that they are asking for (it seems that they are allowed their historical justice)." I don't understand that at all--put historical justice aside and then give the Palestinians all they demand out of historical justice? Who is arguing that? I'm saying is that we have facts on the ground, and we can choose to work with them or just deny they exist, keep arguing about whose great great grandfather wronged whose great great grandfather, and continue with the status quo which is good for no one. Israel isn't going to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians aren't going to drive the Israelis out of Israel. The options are to deal, or keep fighting. I don't see how arguments of "We were here 2,000 years ago" "Oh yeah, we were here 100 years ago" help to resolve the situation. Why prioritize one time period over another? Who would decide? Why even bother at this point when most people want to get on with living their lives? In the meantime, I don't see how it's productive to keep changing the facts on the ground. Again, I wonder how continued settlement expansion helps anyone. I don't see what Israel has to lose by a unilateral freeze. At best, it restarts talks. At worst, it makes the Palestinians look terrible if they don't come to the table with serious proposals.

- dsimon

September 30, 2011 at 12:47am

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noga1: I appreciate your response, particularly in that its conclusion, that “peace is not really an option,” proves how hollow the rhetoric about the need for negotiation really is. I happen to disagree with the conclusion, not least because there’s plenty of evidence that Palestinians are (and long have been) prepared to concede the right of return, though in form of a negotiated outcome rather than a precondition to sitting at the table. Nevertheless, assuming you’re right, that still leaves the question of what to do with the people who are in your way. K2K: That’s the interesting part. Israel doesn’t say, There’s nothing to talk about; we won fair and square; it’s ours, and we intend to keep it. That may have something to do with its own lawyers having said since ’67 that it’s unlawful to do so. But even if it did say that, there’s still the matter of what to do with the Palestinians. On this, not a word.

- gkjames

September 30, 2011 at 6:42am

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"Am I right in thinking there was an earlier Israeli film with the same story? If so, what was that original version like?" http://contentious-centrist.blogspot.com/2008/09/mossad-dames-helen-mirren-is-slated-to.html

- noga1

September 30, 2011 at 8:52am

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dsimon: ". I don't see how arguments of "We were here 2,000 years ago" "Oh yeah, we were here 100 years ago" help to resolve the situation. Why prioritize one time period over another?" Your premise is reductive, dismissive, and mistaken. There have always been Jews in Palestine. There have always been attempts to wipe them out, sometimes successful. http://www.fighthatred.com/historical-events/pogroms-razzias/658-safed-1834-the-forgotten-pogrom http://www.jerusalem-religions.net/spip.php?article3646 What you see happening today is nothing but a repetition of what has become a sort of a historical convention. Israelis refuse to accept this convention, (Jews are attacked, delegitimized, slandered, so they make a run for it). That's what Arabs cannot accept; for them Israel is a violation of a law of nature.

- noga1

September 30, 2011 at 9:16am

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http://www.fighthatred.com/historical-events/pogroms-razzias/658-safed-1834-the-forgotten-pogrom http://www.jerusalem-religions.net/spip.php?article3646 What you see happening today is nothing but a repetition of what has become a sort of a historical convention. Israelis refuse to accept this convention, (Jews are attacked, delegitimized, slandered, so they make a run for it). That's what Arabs cannot accept; for them Israel is a violation of a law of nature.

- noga1

September 30, 2011 at 9:16am

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noga1: "There have always been Jews in Palestine." It's obviously fruitless to even argue anymore. There weren't even people in Palestine if you go back far enough. There weren't any Jews until Abraham (if you believe the Bible). And in any case, you still don't address why whoever lived there in time period A should be given priority over those in time period B. History is what's keeping the participants from solving their problems. As I wrote before, neither is going to expel the other, so arguing about a centuries-long grudge match doesn't advance the discussion. But you seem to think otherwise, and it's clear that we're not going to convince each other otherwise. I think at some point people have to stop thinking of themselves as victims--this applies to both sides--especially when that victimhood happened generations ago, and start dealing with the realities of today. Statutes of limitations have run out. But if some people want to endlessly litigate the wrongs of decades or centuries ago and keep fighting, there's not much anyone can do until they get tired of fighting and start seriously considering alternatives.

- dsimon

September 30, 2011 at 11:02am

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09/30/2011 - 12:19am EDT | ironyroad"I saw The Debt about two weeks ago. I was surprised in a positive way by the film -- it's a heck of a lot tougher and more visceral (in various senses) than I was expecting." yes, "heck of a lot tougher and more visceral" is one very good descriptor. I had no pre-conceptions, because the tv trailers were confusing - I wanted to see a serious adult drama - they only seem to appear after Labor Day - but wanted Helen Mirren in more than what looked like a cameo from the trailers. so, noga, go see it. absolutely riveting, haunting, with depth that is so rare in American films, with a real narrative. I think it is a British production. I read the wiki entry last night and turned out it was supposed to be released just in time for the 2010 Academy Awards, and it will certainly get noticed for 2011. Then I went to boxofficemojo to see the foreign markets - "The Debt" just opened in UAE, among other countries. one line in common with 2008 "Defiance": 'Jews are good at dying.' In "The Debt", it is the former (fictitious) 'butcher of Birkenau' who taunts the young Mossad team with that in an expanded version that still haunts me. Every time I hear that, I think that is why the palestinians are so angry at Israel: The Jews decided to stop being "good at dying". As to the other part of this thread, Krauthammer has a good counter today at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/land-without-peace-why-abbas-went-to-the-un/2011/09/29/gIQACaoI8K_story.html "...●Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism’s most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations. This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace. ..."

- K2K

September 30, 2011 at 11:41am

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K2K, if we can do it without spoiling the movie for anyone else, I'd like to ask what you thought of the ending. As the truth began to unfold toward the end, the film reminded me of Borges's short story "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero." But then the actual ending shifted the emphasis back to a more traditional resolution -- although maybe not 100%. Your feeling about it? Hope that's vague enough to pass muster!

- ironyroad

September 30, 2011 at 12:02pm

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"My only point was that it's not useful to talk about these settlements as if they were part of an Israeli or Jewish colonial enterprise." I don't understand why this should be the case. Certainly Israelis bristle at the notion that their settlement of the West Bank is colonialism. I suppose that one can argue that anything that makes one side of this blood feud bristle is counter-productive regardless of its truth. But I am more inclined to the view that the thing should be identified for what it is. The West Bank is not incorporated into Israel. If it were, then Israel would have to accord all of the inhabitants the same civil and political rights or be guilty of the crime against humanity of apartheid. As the territory is not incorporated, Israel is settling its population into enclaves in territory not its own, according them, the settlers, both a privileged legal status under separate law and privileged access to resources. The settlers are not even citizens or residents of the settled territory accorded the same status as the other inhabitants. Thus, the settlements smack of both colonialism and apartheid. From wikipedia: "Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by colonists - people from the metropole. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships: between the metropole and the colony, and between the colonists and the indigenous population." What is most distinctive about colonialism is the subordinate status of the colony. It is not part of the metropole (as for example Hawaii and Alaska, although physically disconnected from the "mainland USA" are part of the metropolitan US), but is subject to it. The superior political entity imposes its will and injects its population against the wishes of the subject population by use of superior force. It seems to me that colony is a precise description of an Israeli settlement in non-metropolitan Israel and colonization a precise description of what is occurring in there. In my opinion, the refusal of Israel to acknowledge honestly what it is doing (because it would then be ashamed) or at least to accept that it must desist, because colonization is not permissible in the modern world, is the very reason why Israel cannot come to the negotiating table. It is very this reason that Netanyahu was so supremely stupid not to make the US request the reason for suspending settlement construction without then having to admit the impropriety. Israel could plausibly have given deference to US diplomacy as the reason for suspending settlement without thereby conceding any point in advance of negotiations. The Palestinians will not accept their colonization or allow Israel to harvest the fruit of its illicit acts. Israel will not yet accept, even for peace, an outcome in which it can neither continue its illicit acts nor harvest the fruit of its prior illicit acts. The excuses are endless in their number and variation, but inevitably recite some history or other to give weight to Jewish claims or cast blame on the Arabs or explain the futility of negotiations or even of achieving a peace agreement with them. These are all irrelevant distractions meant to cause us to avert our eyes from the ongoing violation by Israel of civilized norms. There is no excuse. There is no justification. And there is no possibility of peace until Israel gives up its colonial ambition, completely, and then focuses its attention on how to resolve the tension and conflict it has created so as to make peace possible. I think abandonment of the settlements is one possibility, although a poor one as it maximizes the damage done. A better solution, in my opinion, is to trade some settlements that to remain in Palestine, under Palestinian sovereignty, for some Palestinian right of return. This would enable each side then to claim that it has vindicated a core demand while also compromising, for the sake of peace, with a core demand of the other side. This appears to me to be a stable bargain that both settles outstanding claims finally while giving them sufficient recognition to allow each side to accept satisfaction. The bitterness could then be brought to a close with time. As long as Israel persists in its ongoing human rights violation, its illicit colonization, or insists that there can be no peace unless the Palestinians will legitimize the illegitimate, peace is not possible, and it is Israel that makes it impossible. That is not to say that the Palestinians will accept a viable peace. We don't know. But the only way to put that to a test is for Israel to stop, once and for all, firmly and finally. Because, with or without peace, the colonization of the Arabs is forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention, as forbidden in the modern world as is slavery. I think we do Israel a disservice by failing to call its behavior by its true name. This only enables the delusion to continue.

- roidubouloi

September 30, 2011 at 12:34pm

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"My only point was that it's not useful to talk about these settlements as if they were part of an Israeli or Jewish colonial enterprise." "I don't understand why this should be the case. Certainly Israelis bristle at the notion that their settlement of the West Bank is colonialism. I suppose that one can argue that anything that makes one side of this blood feud bristle is counter-productive regardless of its truth. But I am more inclined to the view that the thing should be identified for what it is." Wwll, it's not a colonial enterprise if you are settling in what you consider your own country. Doesn't matter that international law or all the leftists in the world don't see it that way. The Europeans who colonized the Americas or Africa, etc. were not setting in ancestral land. This is why it's not useful to talk about it. The people settling on the West Bank as I said don't see themselves as colonialists. Best way to tackle it is to show how counterproductive the settlements are to the Zionist cause and how much blood and treasure is being wasted there.

- arnon

September 30, 2011 at 5:22pm

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It is not your own country unless it is incorporated -- that is metropolitan law is extended there and to all inhabitants. If not, it is either colonialism, apartheid, or both. Israel cannot have it both ways, claiming it is settling its own country while not extending the rights of citizens to all inhabitants. _______________ Having just seen The Debt, the answer to the question what was the original Israeli version is "Ha Hov."

- roidubouloi

September 30, 2011 at 11:19pm

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irony: I have not read anything by Borges - so can not comment on any linkage of the story you cite to "The Debt". The ending? Both very satisfying and very confusing (need Abby from NCIS to insert facial recognition email!). And, totally unrelated to the ending, wanting to know much more backstory of the three Mossad agents before 1966 -where they came from, what happened to their parents, etc. Especially Rachel - what a complex character! Will definitely see it again when it comes out on dvd. Just read that Nigeria and Gabon will vote yes in the UNSC, getting Abbas to eight, but the source, a palestinian news report, stated that Colombia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (what are the InTrade odds are on those two???) are Abbas' options for the ninth vote. Might take Brad Pitt in "Moneyball" to clear my head :)

- K2K

October 1, 2011 at 12:35am

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http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2011/09/30/john-b-judis-of-the-new-republic-joins-the-israel-bashers/?singlepage=true Ron Radosh's in-depth takedown of this post by Judis.

- K2K

October 1, 2011 at 4:06am

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K2K, Many thanks for the Radosh reference, and I'm glad Radosh did the job in full. I gave up on the prospect of doing it in a comment here, which is why my post started with "I'm amazed at the number of distortions in this article, many of them made by leaving out material called for by the context. One example: ... ". And, at least some non-negligible number of people read Radosh. TNR used to be not only dependable regarding sympathy for Israel, but also for its putting a high value on honesty, only compromised by an occasional accident. But John Judis is no accident.

- yerubal

October 2, 2011 at 1:08pm

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And, K2K, thanks also for your comment in the thread of comments at the Radosh piece!

- yerubal

October 2, 2011 at 1:30pm

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Perhaps Radosh's closing remark bears repeating here: "TNR’s editors owe its readers an opportunity for someone to rebut his argument in its own pages, or to run a debate on the article with Judis and an opponent. TNR would well serve its readers by allowing a tough answer to John Judis’ anti-Israel bashing article."

- yerubal

October 2, 2011 at 2:45pm

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"And in any case, you still don't address why whoever lived there in time period A should be given priority over those in time period B." You are quite deaf to hearing what I said. I said it plainly: There have always been Jews in the territory previously known as Palestine (previously known as Judea, previously known as Israel). There were Jewish communities living and thriving there even as there were Arabs (mostly bedouins) living there. Once Jewish population reached a certain critical mass, it was only a matter of time before it insisted on its sovereignty, particularly in light of the fact that it was based on International treaties and promises, and in view of the fact that the Arabs refused to share the land. If you are a religious Jew, you are entitled to the land by virtue of your religion. If you are a secular Jew, you are entitled to the land by virtue of your nation's history in it, an uninterrupted presence and settlement since antiquity. If you are a socialist Jew, you are entitled to the land by having settled and laboured on it and turned it into a thriving enterprise that produced work and income to a multitude of families. If you are a lawyer Jew, you are entitled to the land by International Law. If you are a warrior Jew, you are entitled to the land because you fought for it fair and square and won. In your universe none of the above holds sway, unless it is an Arab who claims the land.

- noga1

October 2, 2011 at 6:38pm

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These arguments about whose land it is are anachronistic for two reasons: First, the UN has already divvied up the land. The West Bank is part of the Arab partition. That was also true of land occupied by Israel in the War of Independence, but the UNSC took a particular approach to the outcome of that war in the expectation that a peace would be reached. The result of the unwillingness of the Arabs to make peace was that Israel was able to incorporate the territory it occupied then and its sovereignty there is no longer contested. The Arabs have accepted the principle of peace based on the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line. Israel, however, refuses to accept that principle. After the Six Day War, the Security Council, having learned somewhat the lesson of 1949, took a different approach that effectively barred Israel from incorporating the territory it occupied. That is that. Whatever the historical, religious, military, labor, etc. claims of Jews to this, they are gone, resolved when the UN partitioned Palestine. Second, and more important, there are people living in the West Bank who enjoy certain human rights, rights by virtue of being human beings. Those include the human right not to be colonized. They also include the human right not to be subject to a form of political domination we call apartheid. That is a crime against humanity. Even if Israel could, based its various claims, incorporate the West Bank without violating UNSC resolutions, it cannot incorporate the territory without according equal political rights to the inhabitants. Else it would be guilty of the crime of apartheid. But Israel will not accept a one-state solution for obvious demographic reasons. Hence, it cannot incorporate the territory. If, on the other hand, it does not incorporate the territory, then it cannot settle it. That is colonization, prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention whether the occupation itself is legal or illegal. Those who endlessly want to repeat the various bases for Israel's claims to the West Bank are living in an alternative universe in which there is no UN, no UN charter, no UNSC, no Fourth Geneva Convention. The claims have been rendered of no account. Israel can neither claim the land, incorporate the land, nor settle the land in question under the system of international law to which Israel owes its existence. Israel has been able to defy international law only because the Arabs stupidly continued to threaten Israel. The claims of its self-defense took political precedence. As the Arabs turn instead toward the machinery and institutions of international law and continue to cooperate with Israel to suppress violence, Israel will lose the ability to defy international law. In any case, the claim that Israel is entitled to colonize the Palestinians because Egypt, Jordan, and Syria went to war in 1967 should carry as much weight as would the claim that Israel is entitled to enslave the Palestinians for the same reason. None. The human rights of the Palestinians are their human rights, inalienable, despite the crimes of various Arab states. Israel might change the border as a result of war; it cannot colonize the defeated or subject them to apartheid. That is forbidden. The pity is that Israel of all states should set itself up as a violator of the human rights of the Palestinians. Insofar as Israel claims itself to be the Jewish state, Israel thereby demeans the Jewish people.

- roidubouloi

October 2, 2011 at 7:59pm

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The legal argument I understand to be embedded in 0/02/2011 - 7:59pm EDT seems right to me. Isn't Resolution 242 as affirmed by Resolution 338 the end of the matter as far as the legal question is concerned? Save for settlements necessitated by security, I cannot see, given those resolutions, any legal basis for Israeli settlement on the West Bank. And isn't 242 as affirmed by 338 what makes Article 46(9) of the Fourth Geneva Convention apply to these settlements. There is a lot of technical complication floating around the question of settlement legality, but the above is the best I can reduce it to having spent a little time just recently considering the matter. If there are other foundational arguments for illegality I'd be interested to consider them as briefly set out. And if there is a legal answer to the argument from 242 as affirmed by 338 I'd like to know what it is as well, as briefly set out. I understand that I am just speaking here only to the legal perspective but that is what has just caught my recent interest.

- basman

October 2, 2011 at 11:09pm

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UNSC resolutions require that the status not be changed unilaterally from occupied to incorporated, which it has not been outside of Jerusalem and immediate environs. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying power from transferring its population into occupied territory. Apart from UNSC resolutions, Israel would have even bigger problems if it tried to incorporate territories without according the inhabitants equal civil and political rights -- apartheid. It is my understanding that all Jerusalemites do have such rights and that Arab residents can be full citizens, voting in national as well as local elections, for the asking.

- roidubouloi

October 3, 2011 at 8:53am

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That's incisive. As a legal matter, I agree. If there's a legal argument against your summation, which I don't understand there to be, as I say, I'd like to see it.

- basman

October 3, 2011 at 10:16am

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If anybody comes back here, here are two possible arguments against my own analysis based on 242 and 338: ________________________________________ U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 November 22, 1967 Following the June '67, Six-Day War, the situation in the Middle East was discussed by the UN General Assembly, which referred the issue to the Security Council. After lengthy discussion, a final draft for a Security Council resolution was presented by the British Ambassador, Lord Caradon, on November 22, 1967. It was adopted on the same day. This resolution, numbered 242, established provisions and principles which, it was hoped, would lead to a solution of the conflict. Resolution 242 was to become the cornerstone of Middle East diplomatic efforts in the coming decades. The Security Council, Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East, Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security, Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter, Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force; Affirms further the necessity For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem; For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones; Requests the Secretary General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution; Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible. ______________________________________________________ 1. the weaker one: Military withdrawal does not entail no civilian settlement on the basis that Resolution 242 structures the applicability of the 46(9); and 2. one with more legs: since the military withdrawal is from "territories," not "all territories," that Israel can stay on some of the territory must imply that who all the territories will go to is an open question. If it's an open question, then ownership is an open question. If so, one can't say definitively that it's all Palestinian land because if it was then the U.N. would have had no right to let Israel stay on some of it. How could it? If that is so, that unclarity, that proprietary open-endedness, demanding resolution by negotiation, ousts the clear applicability of 49(6). That being so, who can say that Israel with all of its historic ties to the land cannot settle some of the lands, those settlements subject to ultimate resolution as was the case in Gaza, resolution in that case coming from its unilateral withdrawal, with the settlements dismantled.

- basman

October 3, 2011 at 5:49pm

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Won't fly, basman, as you must also contend with UNSC 476 and 478, making clear that the USNC does not construe 242 to allow any unilateral change in status, and the opinion of the ICJ that the settlements are illegal. Your two arguments fail to address the core problem: as long as the status of the territories is "occupied," they cannot be settled, except to the limited extent that security can be understood so to require (zero in practice). There is no sense in which 242 "structures" the Fourth Geneva Convention, and there is no exception for purportedly "temporary" civilian settlement. For years Israel made just this argument, that the settlements were not illegal because they could be terminated as part of a final agreement. The Palestinians said that, cloaking itself with a false claim, Israel was unilaterally altering the status of the territories and avoiding the obligation to settle their status by negotiation. In the event, the Palestinians turned out to be right. I think there is a good argument that Israel is not in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention in Jerusalem as that territory is no "occupied" but incorporated. It may be illegally incorporated -- as UNSC resolutions state -- but that is a distinct issue. Of course, there is a question whether the Fourth Geneva Convention continues to apply in territory illegally incorporated. I don't myself see how because its terms don't make much sense as applied to incorporated territory, but it is a question. Also, the background of 242 is such that the possibility of Israel remaining in some territory was understood to be related to security, not to settlement. It is therefore well within contemplation that Israel would retain a security presence, continued occupation, in the Jordan River Valley where there is a significant security justification made even more urgent by the experience of Gaza. There is no security justification for the settlements. Just the reverse. They are a security liability. The single most important fact is that Israel governs the territories under military occupation government. Their status as occupied is not in question. The rest follows.

- roidubouloi

October 4, 2011 at 8:10am

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Good response. Please understand I am not immersed in the legal analysis or the history but am essentially responding to the text of 242 read in light of my unimpressive understanding of both 242’s drafting history, some commentary on it and of the history of the conflict itself. I appreciate the distinction between incorporated and occupied and I have not as of yet given the legal issue of Jerusalem and East Jerusalem a lot of thought. My immediate thought is if settlement is verboten, then incorporation must be even more so and reflects a much more flagrant breach. Conversely, if incorporation escapes illegality, why doesn't as well its lesser, settlement, as a step, and waiting place along the way, to ultimate resolution contemplated by 242's explicit language? But here are my immediate thoughts in answer to your comments. Your first answer does not go to the underlying point arising from "territories" compared to "all territories." The implication arising from that distinction, the argument goes and I repeat, is that ownership of the territories is up for grabs to be resolved ultimately by negotiation. You assert that occupation precludes settlement or some moving in. But what is the basis for that assertion if ownership of which territories is up in the air? Adding to that, you say: ...For years Israel made just this argument, that the settlements were not illegal because they could be terminated as part of a final agreement. The Palestinians said that, cloaking itself with a false claim, Israel was unilaterally altering the status of the territories and avoiding the obligation to settle their status by negotiation. In the event, the Palestinians turned out to be right... This is a historical, not a legal, vindication of competing legal arguments. I'd want to know, and I'm asking the same question again, the legal basis for the flaw in the Israeli argument if ultimate ownership of which territories is unsettled and to be negotiated. And as a historical and not a legal matter, doesn't Gaza vindicate the Israeli position; and doesn't the deal offered by Olmert vis-a-vis the West Bank settlements vindicate it too? Finally, it was my initial assumption before coming to the argument I'm trying to clarify that "Territories" as opposed to "all territories" was driven by security concerns and therefore as you say settlement is, so to speak, beyond the ambit of that distinction and not allowed by 242 or by 242 read in conjunction with 46(9). But 242 does not say security and could have, the argument is, if that is what was intended. (242 speaks everywhere of a negotiated resolution of all issues, including borders, related to the territories.) If 242 does not say security as such, then the application of 46(9) seems, at least textually, problematic to me. To put all this in a nutshell, what is the precise and obvious legal ground precluding settlement during occupation when ownership of what is occupied is itself unsettled and must be ultimately either negotiated or unilaterally forsaken as in Gaza? The content of that nutshell is my immediate problem with your last sentence: I question whether the rest so easily follows. Finally, I have no vested interest in this argument. I am rather trying my best to come to an objective understanding of the most compelling legal analysis.

- basman

October 4, 2011 at 11:02am

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p.s. I have not yet looked at 476 and 478. I will.

- basman

October 4, 2011 at 11:06am

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The legality of incorporation is simply a different question. The right not to be colonized is a human right codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention. The right, if such exists, not to have the territory in which one resides incorporated into a state of which it was not previously a part must rest on some other basis. Various provisions of the UN Charter are surely relevant, as is the history and practice since the founding of the UN, or perhaps the League of Nations. That is surely inconsistent, but I think the weight of it is that, even in the event of legal war, states do not themselves dispose unilaterally of conquered territory. The matter finds it's way to the UN to give concrete and particular expression to the Charter. (In some cases not, such as Tibet.) In this specific case, the matter did reach the UNSC. I think 242 is almost universally understood to prohibit unilateral change of status in a manner that the resolutions and acts creating the 1949 armistice did not. Hence, Israel's incorporation of territory west ofthe Green Line came to be accepted. This is a precedent for the idea that there does not exist a human right not to find oneself in a new country at least if that is not the result of illegal war. In the case of Jordan, we have the opposite. Its annexation of the West Bank was not generally recognized. So, we could infer that territory legally occupied can be incorporated, but only if there is no valid act of the UN to the contrary. In this case, there is such a contrary act. While 242 does allow for a negotiated change of border, in effect empowering the parties to make border arrangements in a matter subject to UN jurisdiction going back to the partition and even the League, not a necessary outcome, unilateral change by Israel is not permitted. It was in 1949 by omission. The omission was not repeated as a result. Hence the language of 242 regarding the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war.

- roidubouloi

October 5, 2011 at 10:38am

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