I did another piece for TomPaine.com at the end of last week, and I see it’s up on their site today. Astute JWN readers will see it’s an updated combination of a couple of things I’ve posted here already. (Remember: you generally read my stuff here on JWN first! It just gets better composed and better organized when I work with an outside editor…)
The piece is called Peace After Lebanon. It looks first at the need for a broad and serious Arab-Israeli peace effort in the aftermath of the Israel-Hizbullah war, and then at the broad debate (not to mention dismay and conusion) in post-war Israel and the debate that’s already emerging there over what should now replace Sharonist “unilateralism” regarding the Palestinian Question.
Here’s how I concluded it:
- Decision-makers and concerned citizens here in the U.S. have, whether we want it or not (and many do), enormous influence over how battle of ideas inside Israel will play out. This past week, Israel’s internal politics have shown themselves to be uniquely fractured, uniquely vulnerable—and therefore, uniquely open to influence from America. Will the political forces in our country line up strongly behind the neocon-Likud vision of Israel as an ever better-armed and trigger-happy bastion of colonial expansionism? Or will they, in this moment of unique opportunity, line up behind Yossi Beilin’s vision of working for a regional peace?
We Americans must know that our tax dollars, our government’s political support, and our munitions all combined to make Israel’s recent military actions possible. Now, we have a responsibility before the whole world for the political choices we make regarding the chance the region has for a viable post-war peace.
I swish I could be more optimistic that our “opposition party” here in US might actually show some vision and guts and jump onto the Beilin/pro-peace bandwagon. (I say, is hollow laughter quite inappropriate at this point?) But if past experience is anything to go by, that’s not likely to happen soon.
But don’t you think that with militarism and colonialist hegemony getting such a bad rap in the US regarding Iraq– even, finally, among many Democrats here– that the Dems might also just start to think to themselves that these exact same kinds of policies might also not be the best thing for Israel, either?
I live in hope (and note with appreciation Scott’s recent post here on JWN, on Republican Senator Chuck Hagel) …
To me the most striking turn of events in this saga is the French offering to lead the UN force before the ceasefire, and then retracting their offer down to 200 people. They mislead everybody proving that they are just cheap talk.
Helena, have you joined the news blackout on Iraq? Remember, it’s the central front in the war on terror. It’s not going well. You might want to start paying attention again. From an August 16 NYT article,* we can derive the following statistics:
1. There were 1,166 successful roadside bomb attacks against US military targets in the month of July, or an average of 38 per day.
2. This is roughly 2x the rate for January (assuming a similar targeting ratio).
3. The US casualty rate (killed and wounded) is up almost 70% from January to July (from 329 to 556).
They also published a graph showing that this is not just a temporary spike. There have been steady upward trends in both the total number of roadside bombs and the success ratio.
The situation has clearly progressed beyond the initial “insurgency” stage, and is now well into Mao’s second level of resistance, even approaching the third, or conventional warfare, stage.
I get the feeling some people here at home still don’t consider roadside bombs a real military threat like tanks or planes. But what would the news media be saying if the enemy had an air force that was hitting our troops 38 times a day? How is this any different?
The Dear Leader says no way are the troops coming home while he’s president. What does that mean? Well, if we completely ignore the upward trend in casualty rates, and just assume things won’t get any worse (contrary to the evidence), one thing it means is that the Decider has just condemned another 15,568 young Americans to death, dismemberment, brain damage, or other debilitating injury. For what?
*http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17military.html?hp&ex=1155873600&en=4d76e5064c0f3ee8&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Helena, have you joined the news blackout on Iraq?
~ No, JC, I really haven’t. But the post-Lebanon developments have been far too engrossing for me to miss, plus I’ve been writing about Uganda, and doing some family stuff. I took a master-class in sock-knitting from my elder daughter over the weekend, and spent a couple hours visiting/helping a friend on her start-up small farm. Domestic/agrico- therapy! Sometimes, doing good things like that are really, really helpful for dealing with stress– and I really, really need need to do ’em.
Meantime, I’m very glad to have alert readers like you keeping us all on the ball.
“I took a master-class in sock-knitting from my elder daughter over the weekend”
I am amazed by people like you who seem to find at least 56 hours in every day. Maybe there is some cosmic time transfer mechanism that allocates resources to high-value individuals. If so, I know where I stand in that hierarchy.
As to Lebanon, this latest conflict is just an example of decadence. Look how almost all of the internal criticism (American and Israeli) is aimed at tactical failure – just like Iraq. This is just lazy, ignorant nonsense. These people have no idea how close Israel just came to the edge of THE ABYSS. What’s that? It’s the event that finally unites the Muslim populations of the region behind the single goal of eliminating the “Zionist Entity.” This is the one thing Israel cannot afford to do, under any circumstances.
Golda Meier supposedly said something to the effect that peace depends on the Arabs learning to love their children more than they hate the Jews. She didn’t have it quite right. Israel’s survival as a Jewish State depends on the Arabs (and other Muslims) contininuing to hate and fear each other more than they hate and fear the Israelis and Americans.
The “Likudnik” dream of Greater Israel died a long time ago. It died even before Sharon proposed the Gaza withdrawal and left Likud.
Yossi Beilin is so unpopular that he couldn’t even get a seat on the Labor MK list and had to jump to Meretz, which can barely win enough votes to remain a party with mandates.
Considering the nation is coming off a war that the media has declared unsuccessful, there will be some inevitable finger pointing. But Israeli society is hardly “fractured” and does not need the patronizing type of Great White Mother influence that Helena would like to spread.
One caveat: given the political confusion, there may be an outside chance that with enough scandals, Netanyahu could bring Likud back to power. But I doubt that this will happen. And even if it did happen, Netenyahu would realize, just like the first time around, that he operates within constraints that prevent any sort of greater Israel dream.
Ultimately, Israeli society is not fractured but largely pragmatic. Helena’s decision to sip lattes with Naomi Chazen reflects more on her, not on Israeli society.
Jack Random of the Jazzman Chronicles has written an extremely straightforward, yet imaginative picture of how peace might come to Arabs and Israelis. Readers of this site might enjoy this brain stretcher.
Helena:
Off topic, a story tip that might be of interest to you :
http://www.iwrnews.org/tasneem/archives/iraq-lawyers-killed-for-defending-cases-against-islam
In addition to Iraq, the theme that begs some follow up is the British-Pakistani plot to blow up the planes out of London. Helena brought up the conspiracy theorist du jour and speculated that tha whole thing was a distractive ploy. Since then at least 11 cases were brought up by the British police, 6 martyr videos found, explosive materials, plus a very credible and broad police effort has been applied. Is the entire London police in in the conspiracy? Will Helena ever issue a retraction or will she stick with the outcome she wished where radical Islam can do no wrong? She calls this stance world news when it is just bias and propaganda.
“…vision of Israel as an ever better-armed and trigger-happy bastion of colonial expansionism?”
How misguided can one person possibly be? Just why do you suppose that Israel has had to spend precious resources on their military? Could it be that they have been under constant attack for nearly 60 years by surrounding Arab countries that have vowed never to permit a Jewish state to exist in their midst just as they did in 1948 when they refused to accept the legal UN-mandated two-state solution?
What you are basically saying (“bastion of colonial expansionism”) is that if peace were to come to Israel, they would have designs on acquiring land from surrounding Arab countries. That’s just nonsense; like Israel wants to waste more of its resources invading its neighbors.
Let’s test your claim empirically. Two countries have made peace with Israel – Egypt and Jordan. Has Israel unprovokedly invaded Jordan since peace was made? Has Israel unprovokedly invaded Egypt since peace was made? Your claim is simply wrong, and this kind of namecalling (“bastion of colonial expansionism”) can have only one purpose – to replace memory with lies.
Yes Jim that is why we are still waiting for your thoughts (and those of many others) on expanding this peace to Israel and all her neighbours. You do think negotiated peace is preferrable, right? Peace such as that Israel enjoys with Egypt and Jordan.