President Bush has been trying to delay calls for a Gaza ceasefire as long as possible, but today there were more signs that other international actors were trying to push the conflict-termination diplomacy ahead with or without him. This on a day when at least 40 double-refugees* in Gaza were killed, and tens more wounded, when an Israeli tank fired on a UN-run school in Gaza, and when president-elect Obama made his first semi-substantive comments on the continuing Gaza-Israeli crisis.
Obama expressed deep concern about civilian deaths in both Gaza and Israel. On the politics of conflict-termination, he said,
- “After Jan. 20 I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East…That’s something I am committed to.”
“Resolve the conflict in the Middle East” is a good and encouraging goal in this context. It implies aiming for something considerably deeper, more far-reaching, and more durable than merely a ceasefire!
Of course, as I’ve noted before, a ceasefire in the immediate round of fighting between Israel and Gaza can, if it is well planned and well implemented, be used as a constructive segue into a broader effort speedily to secure an overall Palestinian-Israeli (and hopefully also pan-Arab-Israeli) peace.
That this might be what’s on Obama’s schedule is possibly indicated by the still unconfirmed reports– here from Jim Lobe— that the chief envoy Obama will name on Arab-Israeli (but not Iranian) issues will be Richard Haass.** Richard was, in an earlier incarnation, the author of the dreadful “ripeness” theory in Arab-Israeli diplomacy– an approach that turned out merely to excuse the endless prolongation of the search for peace and thus to allow Israel additional years and decades in which to pursue its settlement-construction program. However, sometime in the late 1980s he disavowed that idea. He was the first head of the State Department’s influential policy planning unit in the first George W. Bush administration, but resigned early on, quite possibly because he disagreed with the decision to invade Iraq. He is a cautious realist in the Brent SCowcroft mold, and therefore far from the worst choice Obama might make for Arab-Israeli envoy.
Of course, we should also recall that during the election campaign, another thing Obama said was that he completely understood Israel’s desire to hit back at Gaza in response to the rockets that fell on southern Israel. But it’s interesting that that was not the statement from the campaign that he chose to recall today.
… Meanwhile, Sarkozy has been in Syria and Egypt, and Rice has been working the UN crowd in New York. Unclear if the thrust of her intervention there is to explore or to block possibilities for a speedy ceasefire. But Sarkozy’s intense involvement– which is mirrored in some but by no means all other European capitals– calls to mind the role that Jacques Chirac played in 1996 in activating the diplomacy that ended the Israeli assault on Lebanon of that year.
There are many intriguing similarities between these two situations:
- 1. Both wars were launched by Israeli governments facing imminent general elections and were clearly conducted in the context of enhancing their electoral chances. (Note to Olmert/Livni/Barak: It actually backfired for Shimon Peres that year.)
2. In both cases, the war was launched after the breakdown of a shaky previous ceasefire between Israel and a locally rooted, Iranian-allied organization that had been labeled and quarantined by western powers as “terrorist.”
3. In both cases, Israel killed hugely disproportionate numbers of Arab civilians in the country targeted, including in incidents of mega-lethality. (Today’s casualties on a UN-run school call to mind the massacre at Qana in April 1996, when Israel killed 106 civilians who had sought refuge in a UN base in south Lebanon.)
So the way things turned out at the end of the 1996 Israel-Lebanon war was very interesting. The hostilities were brought to an end through the conclusion of a formal international agreement to which the governments of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the US, and France were all party, with the governments of Lebanon and Syria informally undertaking to ensure that Lebanon’s Hizbullah was on board it and would observe it.
During the negotiations then, those two governments acted as the channel to include Hizbullah in the negotiation. The governments of Israel, the US, and France refused point-blank to negotiate directly with Hizbullah, but recognized that they needed to ensure Hizbullah’s agreement to the ceasefire if it was to succeed. (The western powers had an exactly similar approach to Hizbullah during the negotiations that ended Israel’s 2006 assault against Lebanon.)
So what made the 1996 ceasefire between (in effect) Israel and Hizbullah much more durable and effective than the one that had preceded it in 1993 were that it was a formal international agreement, with its terms clearly written down and understood by all parties– plus it had an international verification mechanism, in the form of a five-power monitoring committee– that, yes, included Syria along with the other four negotiating governments– that was able over the years that followed to investigate any charges from any side about infractions of others. The 1996 ceasefire was a notable diplomatic achievement for Hizbullah.
… Fascinating if that might be where we’re headed in Palestine, now.
(More later.)
—
* “Double-refugees” because, since the school was in the Jabaliya refugee camp it is most likely these poor individuals were among the 80% of Gaza’s population who are, or are descended from, Palestinians who fled or were forced out of what is now Israel, back in 1948.
** Much less encouraging than the reports about R. Haass were those that Dennis Ross would be named the Obama administration’s special envoy on Iranian affairs. Ross has been a visible hawk on Iran for a long time now.
Helena, what you fail to mention – strangely, since you are so well informed – is that the 1996 ceasefire was underwritten by the forces of the other Occupier – ie Syria – which then proceeded to keep Hizbullah on tight rein. After that, whenever Hizbullah tried a unilateral action the Israelis would retaliate (proportionately) against some Syrian position. The Israelis in other words were collaborating with the Syrian occupation, and indeed Syrian occupation of Lebanon would probably be their preferred option today.
Which neighbouring power do you think will put its hand up to underwrite Israeli security in Gaza? Would you see some value in popping Syria in there too?
Diplomacy is a tad late for these children of Gaza.
http://portail.islamboutique.fr/gaza2008/
Helena, you’re naivete regarding Obama is really breath-taking. How many Presidents have promised to “resolve” the conflict now? Bush promised that the “two-state solution” would be fully implemented by the end of his term. How has that worked out?
The conflict will only ever be “resolved” in one of two ways: the defeat of colonialist/racist ideology of Zionism or the complete genocide/ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (Israel is currently advancing both, which comes first remains up in the air). Will Obama, who perhaps recognizes that reality in his private moments, unlike Bush, acknowledge it publicly? Un-bloody-likely! He has repeatedly voiced full-throated support for American imperialism, of which support for the Zionist terror state is an integral part. The United States cannot “resolve” the conflict if it remains committed to militarist imperialism.
The only real hope for the Palestinians (I say without much pleasure, given my personally precarious financial situation), is the collapse of the American economy, which, when it happens, will hopefully limit the ability of the American imperial terror state to continue to fund the smaller Zionist terror state and will weaken the ability of the American state to continue to shelter the Israelis from the political consequences of their crimes in international fora.
Anyone truly concerned about peace and justice needs to recognize that Zionism doesn’t allow for any accommodation with the just claims of the Palestinians. Justice requires the defeat of Zionism, hopefully in manner that doesn’t threaten the lives of Israeli Jews, even if their political and economic privilege vis-a-vis the Palestinians will necessarily have to be curtailed so that they are more equal. The only other option is the peace of the (mass) graveyard.
Helena, you’re naivete regarding Obama is really breath-taking. How many Presidents have promised to “resolve” the conflict now? Bush promised that the “two-state solution” would be fully implemented by the end of his term. How has that worked out?
The conflict will only ever be “resolved” in one of two ways: the defeat of colonialist/racist ideology of Zionism or the complete genocide/ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (Israel is currently advancing both, which comes first remains up in the air). Will Obama, who perhaps recognizes that reality in his private moments, unlike Bush, acknowledge it publicly? Un-bloody-likely! He has repeatedly voiced full-throated support for American imperialism, of which support for the Zionist terror state is an integral part. The United States cannot “resolve” the conflict if it remains committed to militarist imperialism.
The only real hope for the Palestinians (I say without much pleasure, given my personally precarious financial situation), is the collapse of the American economy, which, when it happens, will hopefully limit the ability of the American imperial terror state to continue to fund the smaller Zionist terror state and will weaken the ability of the American state to continue to shelter the Israelis from the political consequences of their crimes in international fora.
Anyone truly concerned about peace and justice needs to recognize that Zionism doesn’t allow for any accommodation with the just claims of the Palestinians. Justice requires the defeat of Zionism, hopefully in manner that doesn’t threaten the lives of Israeli Jews, even if their political and economic privilege vis-a-vis the Palestinians will necessarily have to be curtailed so that they are more equal. The only other option is the peace of the (mass) graveyard.
I think being concerned for peace requires the rejection of nihilistic pronouncements like “Zionism doesn’t allow for any accommodation with the just claims of the Palestinians.” I don’t feel that Zionism is that narrowly defined, and further that all or nothing pronouncement helps drive people to the hardline end of Zionism and embrace these destructive attacks. I reject all rhetoric from all sides that insist that peace requires the annihilation of one side’s ways of life.
“It wouldn’t make a bit of difference if Hamas surrendered tomorrow and handed-over all its weapons to Israel, because the problem isn’t Hamas; it’s Zionism, the deeply-flawed ideology which leads to bombing children in their homes while clinging to victim-hood. Ideas have consequences. Gaza proves it.”
I don’t see how these Palestinians meet the definition of “refugee.” A refugee is a person who, due to fear of persecution, has fled his or her country or is unwilling to avail the protections of their country.
If Gaza is, as Helena says, Palestine, then the concept of a “refugee camp” for Palestinians makes no sense. One cannot be a refugee in one’s own country. Certainly they are suffering due to the conflict, but they are in their country.
If war breaks out and Canada invades America, and I flee from the northeast to the Southwest, I may be a displaced person, but I’m not a refugee so long as I’m still in America.
And one cannot be a “double refugee.” No such term exists.
It is true that Palestinians have gotten their own special definition for UNRWA aid. Anyone who is displaced can be registered as a refugee. But that is for purposes of UNRWA. The term does not apply under the normal, common sense definition of the word.
When one side’s “way of life” privileges its group identity as superior and with greater claim to land, justice, wealth, peace, etc., as Zionism does, than it indeed requires annihilation. Just as apartheid, slavery, Jim Crow, Nazism, etc. required annihilation.
And sorry for the double post above.
I don’t think any of claims are inherent in Zionism. The notion of the Jewish homeland doesn’t require the expulsion of Palestinians from the mandate. Zionism can’t be defined only by the Kach sympathizers.
“The latest war crime on behalf of the whiners in Israel and their blind and ignorant supporters in the US have resulted in the deaths of 531 Palestinians and an additional 2500 wounded. Let me put that into perspective. The US has 200 times the population so for us to experience the same causalities, we would have to have 106,200 deaths and some 500,000 wounded in ten days of massacre.
Let me give you some facts no American media will provide you with. The Gaza Ghetto is 139 square miles, about the size of Philadelphia or Seattle. Within the Ghetto 1.5 million people live in abject poverty with an unemployment rate of 65%. It’s one of the most densely populated areas on earth. Israel maintains a total and complete blockade on the Ghetto (In comparison, the Warsaw Ghetto contained only 500,000 people)”
“The notion of the Jewish homeland doesn’t require the expulsion of Palestinians from the mandate.”
1. Zionism was about a Jewish state, not a Jewish homeland. I’m sure you know that, and I suspect you know the difference.
2. Recognition of the need to remove the indigenous non-Jews by one means or another in order to have a viable Jewish state is a thread that runs through the entirety of Zionist history from Herzl on, and has been documented and acknowledged by numerous historians, including Israeli historians, some of whom endorse the idea.
Shirin, concepts can evolve. If people insisted on expulsion of non Jewish people as a part of Zionism in the past, they don’t have to keep that insistance in the future.
“Shirin, concepts can evolve. If people insisted on expulsion of non Jewish people as a part of Zionism in the past, they don’t have to keep that insistance in the future.”
Yet, for some reason they do, continuously. Hmmmmm.
Livni was just speculating on being able to tell the “Israeli Arabs,” those Palestinians who have managed to stay on their lands within the 1967 borders, that with the establishment of a so-called Palestinian state in the West Bank, their “national aspirations lay elsewhere.” The continuing fretting about the “demographic time-bomb” also exposes the beating racist of Zionism. It is not just Kach, it is Zionism. If Zionism were to abandon Jewish supremacy, it would no longer be Zionism, and I would be happy.
I agree with As`ad Abu Khalil that Zionism has doomed itself. He wonders whether he’ll live to see its demise. I’m not much younger than him and I’m convinced, barring unfortunate accident or illness, that I will live to see that day.
“beating racist HEART of Zionism,” I meant to say.
And Shirin, if you are the same Shirin that used to comment over at Angry Arab, and you sound like you are, than I wave hi.
Glad to see that you continue to try to inject sanity into these conversations. Sorry that my encomiums have to come during such tragic circumstances.
Gaza bombings only compound historic wrong
Sure, it could evolve, but it hasn’t so far, and looking at it realistically is not showing signs of changing in the direction you suggest – quite the opposite in fact.
It is difficult even for me to envision how there can be a Jewish state without an overwhelming Jewish majority, so I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a Jew. From a purely practical perspective, it’s just about impossible to see how that could work out.
Support has grown over the years for the expulsion of Israel’s own citizens who happen to be Palestinian. It is really somewhat alarming. In addition, I am seeing less denial and more open admission of the fact that it was absolutely necessary to remove the non-Jewish Palestinian population and regret that they did not complete the job (e.g. Benny Morris). So, it seems the shame or embarrassment that previously caused Israelis to deny that part of their reality is decreasing over the years.
The need to maintain “demographic balance” (meaning, actually, balance overwhelmingly favoring Jews, of course), and concern over preserving the “Jewish character of the state” have been a extremely big in Israel for decades, and appear to be getting stronger. That points to the opposite of the evolutionary direction you are suggesting.
And isn’t it obvious by now what Israel is trying to accomplish in the West Bank, and even moreso in East Jerusalem? The land confiscations, the building restrictions and house demolitions, the colonies, the pattern of settler roads, the ever-increasing impediments to movement, and now the wall, all of which are, not coincidentally, squeezing Palestinians into tinier and tinier, more and more isolated enclaves – can there be any doubt that those are intended to accomplish a slow, and “voluntary” ethnic cleansing? If that was not obvious before, it became 100% clear in the ’90’s.
I am not sure how you think any ethnocratic state could ever be created or maintained in an area in which the majority population was not of the “correct” background.
“After Jan. 20 I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East…That’s something I am committed to.”
I hope President Obama will keep his promise without taking sides.
Thank you Helena for keeping us informed to up date news.
Hafid
“After Jan. 20 I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East…That’s something I am committed to.”
I hope President Obama will keep his promise without taking sides.
Thank you Helena for keeping us informed to up date news.
Hafid
Mmm..
I don’t have too much expectations concerning Obama’s policy in ME in genral, nor in the Palestino-Israelian conflict.
1) I’m sure that the Israelians decided to bomb Gaza just before the departure of Bush in order to have free hands and to strengthen their position in any possible negotiation and especially before the arrival of Obama.
2) Obama didn’t say anything untill very recently and I’m sure that he was very happy that the Israelians decided this war/reinvasion of Gaza before his presidency begun. He may even have got an agreement with them on this. Indeed, his silence was deafening and the justification used (that he wasn’t yet in the WH) only a pretext : it didn’t prevent him of talking on the economical crisis.
3) The Dems didn’t even criticize Bush on his support of the Israelian either. Yet are they not already elected in Congress ? What prevents them of talking ? Same answer : they are too happy that the Israelians have decided this attack before Obama’s presidency begin.
Conclusion : there is a tacit support of Obama and the Dems for this Israelian attack. But is it a good calculus ? the rest of the world will remember if they don’t take position against this humanitarian crisis and against these warcrimes (bombing a civilian zone, a school marked thus by the UN is a war crime)
I am not sure how . . . any ethnocratic state could ever be created or maintained in an area in which the majority population was not of the “correct” background.
Golly, history sure has turned to bunk lately!
No trick could be easier than the one declared impossible: let the dhimmí just acquiesce in his Bint-Yeorian dhimmitudo, and hey, presto! there you are.
Next question?
It is good to see that there is at least a glimmer of hope for a resolution. European aid agencies are proposing that the EU at least hold off on any Israeli advancement in relations with Israel.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3927039,00.html
Now, if only more organizations and governments begin applying economic pressure in Israel, we may finally make some progress. Dare we hope for a real “Boycott Israel” program?
… make that EU advancement in relations with Israel.
Christiane, I totaly agree with you. We have a proverb says: “let’s pretend to believe the layer until he proves the contrary”. Let’s say just keep hoping though Palestinian question is not among his primary priorities.
“I hope President Obama will keep his promise without taking sides.”
I hope – against all reason – that he will find a way to make history by being the first U.S. president to take the side of the weak, oppressed party.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel
Christine, my expectations for Obama have always been low when it comes to the Middle East, including Palestine. And as I have watched the people whom he has gathered around him as his foreign policy and national security team my expectations have become lower and lower.
If we are lucky we will see a repeat of Clinton – not as disastrous as the last eight years, but nothing to wish for either.
Advocates of a just and comprehensive peace in Palestine must do everything to disrupt the planning of ethno-exclusion that one hears in the voices of Israelis like Benny Morris and Tzipi Livni, not to mention the more radical Zionists who do not pretend to seek platforms to stand on for the sake of international legitimacy.
It is increasingly clear that the Palestine peace project requires casting a spotlight on the extremist nature of Zionism, both its moderate and radical forms; organizing forms of protest and sanction and stigma directed at Zionist leaders who fail to show a willingness to accept ethno-inclusion with Palestinians; and winning more allies among Jewish Israeli citizens who will vocally reject and rebuke the leadership of Israel and join the cause of Palestinian peace and justice.
Zionism is truly nearing its end when the Israeli power structure shows an inability to adjust flexibly to the reality of the Palestinian presence on the land. The inflexibility of Zionist leaders was apparent back in the 1970s and 1980s when the Palestinian leadership shifted its strategy for a comprehensive just peace settlement. The failure of Oslo was the final proof of this inflexibility, and Zionist leaders have been in denial since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. They are living in a dysfunctional past, practicing the same policies of Zionist leaders in the 1940s and 1950s.
Palestinians and advocates of a just peace in Palestine, including the entire Arab and Muslim world and wide segments of the global population, have the power to define the future. It looks like it will be a long tortuous and murderous path forward, requiring repeated relief campaigns for Palestinians bravely resisting the Israeli military, but the inflexibility of Zionist leaders will eventually be broken. More than likely this necessitates a great rupture within Israeli society, as social and political oaths of allegiance within Zionism are twisted and strained amid accusations of treason and abandonment of the false dream of Jewish control over the land.
It is always important to bear in mind that not all Israelis subscribe to the ethnic-exclusivist vision of Zionism. These ISraelis are key allies in the movement for Palestinian peace and justice. Tragically so many of these allies will become caught up in the coming rupture of Israeli society, and they should be encouraged and offered support as much as Palestinians are offered support.
Shirin, I meant by “I hope President Obama will keep his promise without taking sides.” to be sincere to the just cause. Obviously, the just cause belongs to the oppressed people.
Thanks for the clarification!
SD, ethnocracy and pluralism are mutually exclusive. Either there can be a Jewish state or there can be a pluralistic state, not both simultaneously. Therefore, as long as Israel is defined as The Jewish State it will never be pluralistic.
Israel’s/Zionism’s leadership has been inflexible on this not since the ’70’s, but since the ’30’s and ’40’s, and before that. They had to be. And it is not just Israel’s leaders who are inflexible. The only Jews who are realistically “flexible” in the way you seem to mean it are those who can accept Israel as something other than a Jewish state.
You just can define a national entity (and all of its symbols – flag, anthem, etc.) in terms of a single ethnicity/religion/race and pretend it is inclusive. To try to do so defies all logic and reason.
I agree.
I mentioned the developments since the 1970s only because these developments are important to keep in mind when thinking about how the dynamics of a negotiation for ceasefire/settlement will play out in the future.
I don’t think this process will play out in the black vs. white terms which so many like to imagine. Moreover, this is a good thing for peace and justice in Palestine. It means that the progressive vision of inclusive politics will prevail.
In the struggle for Palestinian peace and justice, this is very important to keep in mind because the black vs. white mode of thinking is what will, in the end, sink the Zionist’s exclusivist definition of the land of Palestine as “Israel.”
Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause can have confidence in this because during the pre-Zionist era the land was inclusivist, and when the land returns in the post-Zionist era to its inclusivist condition, peace and justice will be sure to prevail.
Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” should be required reading for every jew and American:
Here is how the Palestinian village of Qubaya was cleansed: Following the established routine, they surrouned the village from three flanks, leaving open the eastern flank with the aim of driving out 6 000 people in one hour.
When that failed to happen, the troops started shooting at the people indiscriminately. Venturing back the next day, the mukhtar beheld the piles of dead bodies in the mosque, with many more strewn about in the steet. The count was 455 people. The jewish soldiers who took part in the massacre also reported scenes of babies whose skulls were cracked open, women raped and burned alive in houses, men stabbed to death
For those that survived the jewish massacre machine, roadblocks were set up and all refugees were searched, particularly the women. Their gold jewley was stolen from their necks, their wrists and whatever was hidden in their clothes, as well as money and whatever was precious and light enough to carry.
The people were then forced to march, without food and water, to the West Bank, many of them dying from thirst and hunger on the way.
Neither Hitler nor Stalin could have done better.
Quoting Pappe: “Again, the inevitable question presents itself: Three years after the Holocaust, what went through the minds of those jews who watched these wretched masses of people pass by?”
Five hundred thirty-one Palestinian villages were destroyed, wiped from the face of the earth,
800 000 people, close to half of Palestine’s population, was driven into refugee camps. And the process continues to this day.
If Zionism equals Judaism, it becomes a moral imperative to be anti-Semitic.
Olmert, Barak, Livni, Ashkenazi, Diskin, and other Israelis are today committing the same crimes of ’47-’49, except now they are enforcing death by explosion, shooting, starvation, or thirst on the spot with no evacuation possible. This is why Zionism is finished, and the post-Zionist era is near. Anti-Semitism was not, and never will be an imperative, because Zionism never defined Judaism. It defined a bizarre ethno-centric, quasi-religious national irredentist colonial movement at the end of the era of western imperialism.
Sd, I don’t get your logic. The Israelis are “are enforcing death by explosion, shooting, starvation, or thirst on the spot with no evacuation possible” in front of the eyes of the whole world, and getting away with it with nothing more than a very neutral, “tsk, tsk, you two have to play nice with each other”, therefore Zionism is finished?
I do not agree that Israelis are “getting away with it.” I once feared that was the case, like watching a person get away with murder. But I no longer believe it is true.
Keep in mind that history plays out in logical ways only in hindsight. What seems to be an illogical conclusion in one set of circumstances may become perfectly logical when circumstances change.
There is no doubt that Israel still has military superiority over the Palestinians, but through its military actions Israel continues making its strategic position worse than before. Today its leaders are at the point where, no matter what they do, they can not win.
Hi Rojo! Yes, I remember you well from As`ad’s blog, and it is great to see you here.
It’s really a shame he could not see his way clear to impose some sort of control on his comment section. It became a complete cesspool, I am afraid, to the point that it was not worth keeping open just for the minority of people who had something worthwhile to contribute.
This is a very different environment, and I hope you will continue to comment here.