Thinking Strategically on Settlements
July 13, 2012 § 1 Comment
Shimon Peres gave a speech this week in which he warned about the danger that settlements pose to Israel’s Jewish majority. He spoke about a “threatening demographic change” and pointed out that without a Jewish majority, Israel will cease to be a Jewish state. This prompted predictable outrage from the right, with Yesha head Dani Dayan inveighing that the only danger to the Jewish state is conceding the right to the West Bank and 350 rabbis sending Peres a letter in which they said he should beg for forgiveness for the peace process and criticized his “hallucinatory ideas.” Peres’s speech also, however, brought opprobrium from the left, as various people were upset that Peres framed the problem with settlements as a strategic problem rather than an ethical or moral one. In this view, the primary problem with the settlements is that they are furthering the occupation and preventing a Palestinian state, and thus the argument against them should be that Israel is perpetrating an unethical policy in the West Bank and settlements should be denounced primarily as conflicting with the value of a democratic state and a Jewish state.
I am sympathetic to this argument, but it ignores the politics of the situation and misses the long view. The left and center-left do not need any convincing on the need for Israel to abandon the settlement enterprise outside of the major settlement blocs that Israel will presumably keep in a peace deal. If there is to ever be real movement on this issue, it is the right that needs to be brought around, and arguments about Palestinian rights are unlikely to be convincing. I do not mean to suggest that everybody on the right is completely unconcerned with the status of the Palestinians on the West Bank, but this has historically not been a winning argument on the right. If the right is to be swayed, it will be by arguments about Israel’s security and future, and in that sense, the demographic argument is the only one in town. I’ve heard that people in the upper ranks of the government don’t take the demographic threat seriously and believe that time is actually on Israel’s side, and I have had similar impressions in talking to friends and colleagues who are more rightwing on Israel issues than I am. When I was in Turkey two years ago, I got into what turned into a heated discussion with an older American Jewish couple whom I met while their cruise ship was docked in Istanbul for the weekend. During a conversation about Israel where I brought up the argument that Israel was running out of time to separate from the West Bank, the wife heatedly insisted that I had no idea what I was talking about because her daughter lives in Israel and has five kids, and so she absolutely refuses to believe that in 20 years there will be just as many Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank as there are Jews. The only way to convince rightwingers and conservatives that settlements need to be dealt with is to keep on pushing the demographic argument and make people realize that every day that passes increases the possibility of a binational one state Israeli future. This is why Peres’s speech was the correct response to the Levy Report, and while it might make folks on the left upset, a little more strategic thinking on this issue is required.
On a similar note, this is why I think that the Levy Report is so dangerous and why I disagree with Brent Sasley’s argument that Levy does not represent anything new. Has Israel been extending its control over the West Bank? Yes, it has. But that doesn’t mean that the Levy Report is not a dangerous development, because by legally eviscerating the line between Tel Aviv in Israel proper and Efrat over the Green Line, and between authorized settlement bloc Ariel and unauthorized outpost Migron, it brings a one state solution ever closer (for those whose Hebrew is less than stellar, Elder of Ziyon has a useful translation of the legal reasoning section of the Levy Report). The report’s significance is not in what it signals about past Israeli intention in the West Bank, but in what it signals about Israel’s political future and survival as a Jewish state. Brent and others think that the report is simply more of the same and that the declaration that there is no occupation is just the Israeli right showing its true colors in a more public manner, but this loses sight of the fact that Levy represents the opening salvo in the growing calls for a rightwing one state solution. Quite simply, this will be the end of Israel as we know it, and the right needs to be convinced that this is a path to oblivion. If this requires hammering away at the demographic argument and dropping language steeped in morality and ethics, so be it. Peres is on to the right idea here, and people on the left and the center should start thinking along these lines as well.
Labeling Turkish Political Parties
July 12, 2012 § 2 Comments
Issandr El-Amrani has a terrific post over at The Arabist on the various labels that people assign to Arab political parties, and he makes the case that there is too much inappropriate conflation between different types. For instance, he says that all non-Islamists in the recent Libyan election were dubbed as liberals, when in fact that group included many parties and that were neither economically liberal or socially liberal. Similarly, secularists and liberals are often used interchangeably, when in fact secularists might be moderate Islamists or decidedly non-liberal conservative felool. He also argues that the term Islamist is overly broad (an argument that most knowledgeable observers have made and would agree with) but dives down even deeper than the Salafi/non-Salafi divide, asserting that in Egypt one can speak of Ikhwani Islamists, Salafi Islamists, and Wasati Islamists. He has a lot more in there, and you should go read the whole thing for yourselves.
It got me thinking about Turkish politics and the labels that outsiders tend to use with regard to Turkish parties. You almost universally see the AKP referred to as Islamist, but this is wrong in many respects. To begin with, the AKP itself rejects the Islamist branding, and looking at virtually every other Islamist party in the world, it is easy to see why. The AKP does not advocate for disbanding the secular state or legislating according to the principles of sharia, and it has not made any overt moves to do so. The AKP governs not as an Islamist party, but as a secular party whose members are personally devout. The fears that many expressed upon the AKP coming to power in 2002 have not come to pass, and even if the party has led the way toward a more visibly pious or conservative Turkish society, nobody can credibly argue that it has done this through legislative government action. Compared to Arab Islamist parties, the AKP is not even in the same ballpark, and should reasonably be characterized as a socially conservative party rather than a religious one. Prime Minister Erdoğan won himself no Islamist fans in Egypt when he traveled there last fall and lectured a Muslim Brotherhood audience about the vital need for a secular state, which is a strange move for the head of a supposed Islamist party to make.
Similarly, the terms secular and liberal have not traditionally coincided in Turkish politics. The current incarnation of the CHP under Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has tried to remake itself as a socially liberal party, but historically the CHP’s fealty was to Kemalism above all else. Atatürk and Inönü were not liberals in the sense we use the term today although they were (to turn a phrase) religiously secular and carried out socially liberal reforms that conformed with their secular vision, and the CHP and other secular parties abetted much illiberal behavior on the part of politicians and the army. Turkey’s military coups were carried out by staunch secularists, but the coups were the very apotheosis of illiberal behavior. The 1982 constitution enshrined military-imposed secularism basically at gunpoint (yes, I know that there was technically a referendum, but that was not exactly what we would call a free and fair election free from coercion), which may have enshrined principles that we associate with liberal governance but was certainly not a liberal document. The nationalist party, the MHP, is also a secular nationalist party that is not a liberal one, and thus the secular-liberal fusion that we are used to in the West does not apply to Turkey quite so neatly.
None of these ideas are new, but they bear repeating. It is considered common knowledge in most of the world, and even within some quarters in Turkey, that the AKP is Islamist, which is what drives much of the talk about applying the “Turkish model” to Arab states where Islamist parties are strong. It is also assumed that any secular parties in government will automatically be less authoritarian and more committed to liberal democracy than the AKP appears to be at times. Both of these assumptions are fallacies, and those of us who work on Turkey might want to take El-Amrani’s words to heart and be a lot more careful about the terms we use and what those terms imply when we discuss Turkish politics.
Olmert Is No Lazarus
July 11, 2012 § 1 Comment
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who resigned amid a slew of corruption allegations, was acquitted yesterday on two corruption charges and found guilty of merely breach of trust in a third. While the Holyland corruption trial is still ongoing, yesterday’s verdicts are a clear victory for Olmert, who is now seen in some quarters as the victim of an unfair witchhunt, and his acquittal has prompted calls for the state prosecutor to resign. Olmert’s reputation has also undergone a resurgence overnight; a bunch of Kadima MKs publicly called for him to return to politics, with Yuval Zellner calling him one of the best prime ministers in Israel’s history, and one columnist posited that Olmert is the only Israeli politician who could credibly challenge Netanyahu in the next election.
I wouldn’t be so quick though to count on Olmert rising from the political graveyard. First, there is the question of his political constituency. Let’s not forget that Olmert was massively unpopular due his presiding over some enormous catastrophes, starting with the 2006 war against Hizballah. The Winograd Commission eviscerated Olmert’s leadership, judgment, and decisionmaking, and stressed his lack of military experience, all of which led to Olmert’s approval rating falling to a jaw-dropping 3% at one point. His efforts to negotiate an agreement with Mahmoud Abbas were widely viewed as a political stunt engineered to save his career. Even before the indictments against him, Olmert was seen as being overly corrupt in a political system legendary for its corruption. In short, this was an unpopular prime minister with no military record to fall back on whose primary accomplishment was negotiating an agreement that was never accepted or even countered. Which segment of the public is going to be clamoring for his return? What in his track record makes him a foe that Bibi should fear? Plenty of Israeli politicians have had second lives in politics after being cast aside, with Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu being the two most prominent recent examples (and Tzipi Livni perhaps poised to be another), but they all had large cadres of backers and took advantage of new political developments to reassert themselves.
Which brings me to point number two. Given his efforts at the end of his time in office and his public comments since he stepped down, Olmert’s presumed constituency would be the Israeli center that wants to see a renewed push for a deal with the Palestinians. The problem is, this center is pretty much non-existent at this point. It is no accident that we hear very little from Labor leader (and opposition head) Shelley Yachimovich about the peace process, or that Tzipi Livni barely harped on it when she was opposition leader, or that Shaul Mofaz focused almost exclusively on social issues when he ran to replace Livni as Kadima head. There are a combination of factors that have contributed to the death of the Israeli peace camp (and this deserves a long blog post, which I plan on getting to soon), but suffice it to say that a deal with the Palestinians is not a winning issue in Israeli politics these days. Given that this has become what Olmert is best known for (aside from royally screwing up in Lebanon), I don’t envision a huge grassroots movement to draft Olmert back into politics.
The one place where he does appear to have a constituency is within the ranks of Kadima. The Kadima MKs who called for him to return yesterday are pretty clearly unhappy with Mofaz, who went from stating that he would never join forces with Netanyahu (whom he dubbed a liar) to joining the coalition to then making empty threats about leaving and is now seen as an incompetent as he endlessly dithers over whether to stay or go following the Plesner Committee fiasco. The problem is that Mofaz is not going to just step down and hand over the reins of his party to Olmert, despite the nonsensical assertion in Time that Mofaz’s congratulatory message to Olmert yesterday means that he would do exactly that. Let’s say that Olmert’s supporters within Kadima, who are disenchanted with Mofaz, decide to revolt. Either they manage to break off and form a rump party with Olmert at its head, which is not going to scare anybody, or they force another divisive leadership battle within Kadima, which weakens it even further and leads to its virtual disappearance. Either way, I don’t see how this provides a successful vehicle for Olmert to rise back up to political relevance.
I can understand why there are those who look at Bibi and miss the days when Olmert was prime minister, but my hunch is that this group of people, however large, mainly resides outside of Israel. Within Israel, I just don’t see how Olmert at this point reenters politics with any real support behind him. There doesn’t seem to be a contingent of Israelis that would naturally support him, and some disenchanted MKs being led by a former PM whose popularity at one point was almost literally zero does not a political dynamo make. It would be great if Olmert’s return to the political scene sparked a renewed interest in the peace process and a reexamination of what Israel needs to do to separate from the Palestinians and create a Palestinian state once and for all, but I think that Netanyahu can rest easy when it comes to Olmert presenting a challenge to his political dominance.
The Latest Reminder That All Politics Is Local
July 10, 2012 § 2 Comments
Remember the enormous optimism in Turkey when François Hollande was elected? Predictions abounded that Turkey’s path to EU membership was going to be far easier than it had been under Sarkozy, and it appeared that the kerfuffle over the Armenian genocide denial bill in France was a thing of the past. At the time, I thought this enthusiasm was misplaced, and wrote the following:
France sees much of North Africa as being in its domain given its colonial history there, and it is threatened by another outside power establishing deep economic ties as Turkey has been doing. The Armenian issue is also not one that was first initiated by Sarkozy; the French parliament voted in 2001 to declare the events in Armenia a genocide and the Assembly voted in 2006 to criminalize its denial (it did not pass the Senate at that time). Turkey-bashing is a popular electoral sport in France no matter who is running, and the emotions that it stirs up are not so easily suppressed once the votes are counted. At the end of the day, a Hollande victory is likely to herald a positive reset in France’s relations with Turkey – although Hollande is considered to be one of the Socialist Party’s most pro-Israel politicians so the continued shenanigans over Israel in NATO forums won’t help matters – but it is not going to be the panacea that permanently puts the Armenian issue to rest in France or mean a fast track victory for Turkey’s EU bid.
Now, as it turns out, the Armenian issue cannot be put to bed so easily. Exactly as he promised he would do during his campaign, Hollande has announced plans to reintroduce a bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide. His reason for doing this is pretty simple: there is a large Armenian community in France, and Hollande wants to ensure that he has their votes in the next election. In fact, Hollande is so committed to this issue, it has been reported that he has been exploring means other than legislation, such as an official degree that would penalize Armenian genocide denial, given the fact that a previous iteration of the law was ruled unconstitutional. It is worth remembering that Prime Minister Erdoğan had restored full ties with France following Sarkozy’s defeat on the assumption that this issue was over, and if Hollande indeed pushes for another Armenian genocide bill, I expect that ties will be downgraded once again. On top of the fact that Turkey has suspended formal political ties with the EU during Cyprus’s presidency, it does not appear that Turkey’s EU bid is any better off now than it was when Sarkozy was in office.
This should be a useful reminder of two things. First, domestic politics trumps everything. Hollande cares a lot more about being reelected and pleasing various domestic constituencies than he does keeping Ankara happy. He is more than happy to risk Erdoğan’s wrath on this issue if it means another term down the road in the Élysée Palace. Second, and more importantly for our purposes, it indicates that there is a perception gap between France and the rest of the EU on one side and Turkey on the other over Turkey’s value to the EU. There is a view that has taken hold in Turkey over the past few years, as Turkey’s economy has exploded while Europe’s has tanked and as Turkey has become a more influential global player, that Europe needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe. I myself think that Europe stands to benefit greatly from Turkish accession to the EU, but the fact that Hollande is willing to risk another rupture in ties over what seems to be a comparably small domestic political issue suggests that many in Europe do not share this view. Ankara would do well to take heed of this, since bad relations with France and endless fighting over Cyprus only benefit Turkey if Europe as a whole believes that there is something to lose by alienating Turkey. Were I advising Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, I would suggest that they ignore this latest provocation, keep tensions low over the latest Armenian genocide news, and wait to see how things play out. Blowing up at Hollande and France will not accomplish anything in this case, and will demonstrate that Turkey is willing to be more pliable and puts joining the EU at the top of its list of priorities.
Israel at a Dangerous Crossroads
July 9, 2012 § 4 Comments
The three member group led by former High Court justice Edmund Levy charged with investigating the legal status of unauthorized settlements in the West Bank issued its report yesterday, and its consequences cannot be overstated. The Levy Report found, in a nutshell, that the occupation of the West Bank is not actually an occupation because Israel’s presence there has spanned decades and is thus unique in modern history, and it therefore follows that settlements are not illegal as they are not being built in occupied territory. The report also states that because unauthorized settlement construction took place with the tacit agreement and implied support of successive governments, the unauthorized settlements can be retroactively legalized. So basically, for those following along at home, if you do something that is illegal for long enough, you can just call it legal later on down the road, and if the government decides to ignore the rule of law, that somehow changes the meaning of rule of law. In what can only be described as the most extreme of self parodies, Yesha head Dani Dayan praised the committee’s “impartial first rate jurists” and said that “it is clear that deep, basic and serious legal work was done.”
The report itself is bad enough, but more worrisome is the reaction from cabinet members, who are literally falling all over themselves to see who can be the one to most effusively praise the committee’s findings. The politics are such that there appears to be zero downside to pretending that Israel is not militarily occupying the West Bank because this occupation does not look like other occupations, and that is bound to create pressure for the government to formally endorse the committee’s findings. The fact that I haven’t seen any statements at all from people such as Benny Begin or Dan Meridor (and if they have issued statements or given interviews, please email me or post in the comments section) is even more worrisome yet, since their silence on this means that they either agree (unlikely) or are too cowed by the settler movement to speak out against it. Even Tzipi Livni, who is not a huge settlement advocate and who is not even formally in politics at the moment, said that “it is possible and necessary to use the Levy Report for matters of international law, while considering the current reality and continue negotiations on settlement blocs.”
Israel has reached a dangerous point, and I do not say that lightly. For years, Israel and Diaspora Jews railed against the idea of a one state solution, which was viewed – quite correctly – as a backdoor way of dismantling the Jewish state. With the Levy Report, Israel’s right wing has come up with its own one state solution, but the problem is that this one smashes any pretense Israel will have to being a democratic state unless it enfranchises all of the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Somehow, I don’t think that this is what Edmund Levy, Avigdor Lieberman, or Dani Dayan have in mind. If this happens, Israel can kiss any international support that it has goodbye, and that includes the U.S. I painstakingly made the case once before that U.S. support for Israel stems from the fact that it is a democracy and that should not be taken lightly. Israel does not want to live in a world in which it is forced to make common cause with China and Russia, and Jews of all stripes – Israeli and American, religious and secular – do not want to have to defend an Israel that openly annexes the West Bank while permanently and legally relegating the Palestinians to official second class status.
I refuse to believe, or perhaps just hope, that Netanyahu is stupid enough to take the Levy Report to its fullest logical conclusion. He is a smart guy and is well attuned to the challenges Israel faces, both military and otherwise, and he knows that what amounts to an annexation of the West Bank without corresponding political rights for all of its residents – in essence, the dreaded one state solution – would be suicidal. This is more than maintaining the status quo, in which Israel and the Palestinians negotiate on and off, the big settlement blocs that Israel is expected to maintain in a deal continue to grow, and Israel accepts that it is an occupying force that does not intend on remaining in the West Bank forever. The Levy Report represents a revolutionary and radical change, in which the occupation does not exist, the peace process is over, and the two state solution is finally dead and buried. There is no going back from this, since once the Israeli government declares that it is not occupying anything, it will be impossible to reign in the settlers if the government ever comes to its sense and changes its mind. The implementation of the Levy Report would make Israel a true pariah state on the world stage, and implementing it and then walking it back would mean civil war. Netanyahu knows all this, and he isn’t going to drive Israel into a ditch.
So, what happens next? I have been arguing again and again and again, and then one more time for good measure, that Likud is a party busting apart at the seams and destined to split. I think that this might be the final crack that splinters the party, depending on what Netanyahu does. The pressure from the settlers’ wing, triumphant in this gift that they have been handed, is such that Netanyahu cannot just blow them off or even water down the Levy Report. If he wants to keep them in the fold, he needs to implement the report, or else he is going to have a full blown rebellion on his hands and will be denounced up and down for betraying the settlers’ cause. If, on the other hand, he grasps the full enormity of what accepting the Levy Report means, then he is going to have split Likud in two. I stand by my prediction that he is going to choose keeping Israel in one piece and fracturing his party rather than the other way around, but if he doesn’t, then Israel is in for some dark days ahead.
Tycoon Politics
July 9, 2012 § Leave a comment
One of the most consequential, and yet underappreciated, events in recent Israeli politics was the creation of the Israel Hayom newspaper in 2007. Israel Hayom (meaning Israel Today) is owned and bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson, who has recently become well known in the United States for his support of Newt Gingrich and now Mitt Romney through millions of dollars in super PAC donations. After only three years, it became the largest circulation newspaper in Israel, and because it is free, it is unlikely to give up its top spot any time soon. It is also unabashedly and unwaveringly supportive of Bibi Netanyahu, and has contributed to a media climate in Israel in which Netanyahu is often treated with exceeding deference.
While Adelson is Netanyahu’s most enthusiastic backer, this was not always the case. As detailed in the recent Vanity Fair profile of Bibi,a decade ago his billionaire champion was Ronald Lauder, who bought Channel 10 in order to provide Netanyahu with a friendly media outlet. Over time, as the independent channel became increasingly critical of Netanyahu, the friendship between he and Lauder deteriorated, and Netanyahu characterized it to Vanity Fair as “O.K. We’ve had warmer periods and cooler periods. I respect him, and he respects me.” Lauder himself has also become more openly critical of Netanyahu, giving what was in many ways a shocking interview a year ago in which he publicly disagreed with Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state before commencing negotiations and criticized his foot dragging on the peace process. This past month, Lauder took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal that was supportive of Netanyahu and placed the blame on the Palestinians for the impasse in the peace process, which was seen as an effort to repair ties with Bibi but also could have been a PR response to the airing of dirty laundry in the Vanity Fair piece. In any event, there is sufficient evidence that Lauder and Netanyahu have parted ways over the last ten years, both in their friendship and in their views on Israeli policy.
In light of all this, the news that Lauder is planning on starting an English language Israeli news website is intriguing. On the one hand, this might be an effort to improve Israel’s image among the world’s English speaking population or even reconnect American Jews to Israel. On the other, this might also be a subtle dig at Adelson and Lauder’s attempt to shape Israeli news abroad as Adelson has done in Israel. Adelson and Lauder do not get along at all, and Lauder’s influence with Netanyahu has waned in direct proportion to Adelson’s increased clout, so it will be interesting to see if Lauder’s new venture is as pro-Bibi as Israel Hayom is. If Lauder has indeed broken with Netanyahu and believes that there needs to be greater pressure put upon him on the peace process front, the resulting clash of the titans will be interesting to watch.
Adelson and Lauder are not the only two billionaires inserting themselves into Israeli politics. Yediot reported today that Charles Bronfman and Ronald Cohen bankrolled the reservists’ protest on Saturday night, which clearly put lots of pressure on Netanyahu to back off his position earlier last week of ignoring Kadima’s demands regarding drafting Haredim. None of these developments are good, since the insertion of foreign money into Israeli politics, whether it be Adelson’s, Lauder’s, or Bronfman’s, is not going to end well. If you need any confirmation of that, just ask Ehud Olmert how things have been going for him lately. It doesn’t appear as if this trend is abating any time soon though, and given the different personalities and viewpoints involved, it looks like Adelson is about to have some competition.
An Important Language Correction
July 6, 2012 § 2 Comments
Last week, Brent Sasley and I had an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor on Israel-Turkey relations. A few days ago, I noticed that one of the commenters on the article said that he had stopped reading after seeing the phrase “nine Turkish human rights activists aboard the Mavi Marmara.” This struck me as odd, because that is not how I have ever described the nine people who died on the Mavi Marmara, I was sure that neither Brent nor I had written that phrase, and I didn’t even recall reading it. Yet there it was, right in the first paragraph.
I went back and looked at the draft that we had sent CSM, and my memory was indeed correct – we had not used such a loaded phrase. The phrase we had written was “the Turkish citizens killed on the Mavi Marmara,” which was deliberate because it did not include a value judgment or indicate that we were taking sides between the Israeli version of “terrorists” and the Turkish version of “human rights activists.” In fact, I would never describe the nine people killed on board the Mavi Marmara as human rights activists for three reasons. First, there is no question that they were armed with clubs, chains, knives, and other similar weapons, which is not how one would characterize human rights activists. Second, some of the Israeli soldiers suffered gunshot wounds, which is also an unlikely move on the part of human rights activists. Third, the members of the flotilla initially refused Israel’s offer to inspect their cargo and then send it along to Gaza, which indicates that there were other motives at play here aside from simply alleviating suffering in Gaza. Furthermore, I have written about or mentioned the flotilla numerous times on this blog, and anyone is welcome to go back through the archives and look; nowhere will you find me ever describing the people who died on board as human rights activists, or any variant thereof. My record on this is both extensive and clear.
So, how did the phrase “Turkish human rights activists” get published under our bylines? As part of the editing process, some things got removed, others rewritten, and different sections of the piece were moved around, and both Brent and I somehow missed this crucial change, partially because it got moved from where we had it in the piece to the very top. I can give you some good excuses for why neither of us caught this – Brent was in Israel at the time with nothing but an iPad to work on, and I had a 3 week old baby at home and was running on less than my usual amount of sleep – but the bottom line is that this is entirely on us. It is not the Christian Science Monitor’s fault, but ours alone, and we have to deal with the fact that we were sloppy. This is an unfortunate but sobering lesson on the vital importance of triple checking everything that ever goes out under your name, and all I can do at this point is set the record straight here.
