Solutionism on Settlements

November 24, 2015 § 8 Comments

Life involves tradeoffs at every turn, and so does foreign policy. The perfect often becomes the enemy of the good, and pragmatic solutions require jettisoning principles. So too in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where each side must at times set aside deeply held beliefs and principles in order to achieve a realistic balance on the ground. Yitzhak Rabin’s realization that he was going to have to shake Yasser Arafat’s hand on the White House lawn, or the PLO’s realization that it would have to recognize Israel, were not steps that were taken lightly or that came easily. However, they had salutary effects that necessitated a sacrifice of principles and for each side created the risk of moral hazard in rewarding behavior that had been deemed out of bounds.

We are now at a similar crossroads when it comes to settlements. As a result of nearly five decades of settlement policy, Israel now has over half a million Israelis living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Even if they are not the root of the conflict, there is simply no question that settlements are an enormous and seemingly insurmountable obstacle, one that is diverting Israel’s political development to a frightening place. Israeli leaders present at the creation of the settlement project, from Rabin to Moshe Dayan, recognized the folly of occupying the West Bank, let alone settling it, and what it would mean for Israel to control millions of Palestinians in a state of political limbo. Nevertheless, here we are, and the fact is that removing half a million Israelis in an eventual peace deal will be an impossible task, and one that Israel is never going to attempt. As has been clear for decades and was formally laid out in the Clinton Parameters, Israel is going to end up keeping the large settlement blocs, allowing the most settlers to remain in Israel on the least amount of land, and will eventually have to evacuate the rest.

Given that it is clear to nearly everyone what the end result will be, there are two ways to approach current settlement construction. One is to treat all settlements as the same and condemn all new building in the settlements, irrespective of where the settlement is or how large it is. This has been the policy of the U.S. government since 1967, and it treats Gilo and Alon Shvut the same as Ofra and Elon Moreh. A settlement is a settlement, and thus any further construction is problematic, no matter the particular settlement’s eventual disposition. The other approach is to differentiate between settlements, and to recognize that building in an area that everyone knows that Israel will keep in any peace deal is not the same as building in areas that effectively bisect the West Bank or cut off Palestinian contiguity or prevent access to Jerusalem. While settlements are generally problematic, not all settlements are equally so.

Proponents of the first approach argue – not without merit – that to create a distinction between settlements now, outside the parameters of negotiations, would be to reward Israeli bad behavior. After creating a network of settlements in the West Bank of dubious legality at best, for external actors to recognize them as effectively part of Israel proper by not registering any complaints over their continued growth is to incentivize Israel to keep on building anywhere it likes in the hopes that creating facts on the ground will subvert Palestinian efforts to halt the settlement project.

As I said, this approach is not without merit, and it is certainly the morally satisfying one for those who have spent decades working to counter Israeli building outside the Green Line. The problem with it is that in occupying the moral high ground, it makes a solution harder rather than easier. The reality is that if a two state solution is to happen, it will require settler buy in, for better or worse, and getting settlers to support two states means recognizing that for the majority of them, expanding their current communities does not create an impediment to a final status agreement. For many on the left, this is a wholly unsatisfying and bitter pill to swallow, but it is also a fact of life that cannot be wished away.

To take an example from the other side of the spectrum (and this in no way suggests any type of moral equivalence), Hamas currently governs Gaza and does not appear to be going away. Hamas is a terrorist group with blood on its hands, and Israel is entirely justified in refusing to deal with it or acknowledge that it has any legitimacy at all. By the same token, rational people understand that as unpalatable as it may be, accepting that Hamas is in Gaza and that it cannot be simply wished away means crafting policies that take this into account, and even communicating with Hamas through back channels, as the current Israeli government has done. Rational thinking on settlements must prevail as well.

One of the striking elements from Israel Policy Forum’s trip to Israel last week was that the people working hardest to implement a two state solution and alleviate conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank are adamant that an all or nothing approach to settlements by calling for a complete settlement freeze would be the death knell for two states. Pragmatism must win out over principle in this case, which means pushing the Israeli government to define just what it means by the blocs – since this can be a nebulous moving target at times – and then creating a policy that distinguishes between kosher and non-kosher settlement growth. The Palestinian leadership and Mahmoud Abbas advanced this approach themselves in 2007 at Annapolis in presenting a proposal that involved Israel keeping 1.9% of the West Bank with equivalent land swaps, and while Israel’s preference is to keep 6.5% of the West Bank with equivalent land swaps, there is a compromise to be had that reconciles these two positions. This is not to accept Netanyahu’s reported position of recognition of the blocs as a quid pro quo for gestures in the West Bank – gestures that he should be taking anyway – or to treat the blocs as annexed to Israel before any final status negotiations have been concluded. It is to understand that while no building in the West Bank is helpful or desirable, one kind is a lot worse than another. While a change in how the U.S. views and treats settlements will lead to frustration for many and engender resentment among Palestinians, it is also the epitome of solutionism.

Why Avigdor Lieberman’s Resignation Really Matters

December 14, 2012 § Leave a comment

In an announcement that has long been anticipated, Israel’s attorney general yesterday said that Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman will be indicted for fraud and breach of trust stemming from his efforts to help former ambassador to Belarus Ze’ev Ben Aryeh become ambassador to Latvia after Ben Aryeh leaked information to Lieberman about the government’s investigation into his dealings. While the breach of trust charge was not a surprise, the fraud charge was, and after saying that he was not going to resign, Lieberman just announced that he will be resigning as foreign minister although he remains as YB party chief and will be running in the elections on the joint Likud Beiteinu list.

When it looked like Lieberman was not going to resign yesterday, there was a lot of commentary on what the indictments would mean for him politically. Brent Sasley called the indictments a distraction and argued that it wouldn’t have much impact on the upcoming election or on Lieberman’s long term goal of eventually becoming prime minister, and I think this is right even after the news that he is stepping down from his cabinet post. Lieberman is still going to get a lot of votes for his party as part of the joint list with Likud, and I think he is also likely to return to his post as foreign minister, even possibly before the election should he work out a plea bargain in time. The short term impact of the indictment and resignation is going to be minimal, and for all of those hoping that Lieberman was going to disappear from public life, you are bound to be very disappointed. Nevertheless, there is an important way in which Lieberman’s indictment and his decision to (temporarily) vacate his FM post matters, but it isn’t about short term politics.

For much of Israel’s history, Israeli politics was dominated by great men who had accomplished substantial things. In some instances they were achievements to be proud of, such as Yitzhak Rabin commanding the IDF to victory in 1967 (at least when he wasn’t suffering a nervous breakdown) and then signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, and in other instances they were (to my mind, at least) not, such as decisions by multiple prime ministers to settle and then settle more the West Bank. Israeli leaders were known for their accomplishments, whether it be creating the institutions of the state, fighting wars against hostile enemies bent on Israel’s destruction, or carving out diplomatic space and cementing alliances. In some ways this was inevitable, as the founding fathers of any state are going to be more accomplished than those that come after them given the nature of the trial by fire that is involved. Yet, even the current generation of Israeli leaders includes seriously accomplished military officers like Ehud Barak, or those with a long history of real diplomatic experience such as Bibi Netanyahu, or people who have grappled with the administrative difficulties of running the world’s most complicated and sensitive city such as Ehud Olmert. Is there a serious drop off from Ben Gurion and Rabin to Netanyahu and Barak? Sure. But Avigdor Lieberman represents a crass and disturbing trend that makes the latter group look like veritably Jeffersonian.

Lieberman has no tangible accomplishments to speak of other than being a thuggish party hack. He went from being a student who stirred up tensions between Jews and Arabs at Hebrew University to being a bouncer to being a Likud functionary beholden to Netanyahu. He has become the leader of his party not because of any substantial accomplishments but because of his Russian background. He has been an embarrassment as foreign minister who has complicated Israel’s relations with a number of countries, contributed to the Palestinian Authority’s losing ground to Hamas, and is frequently sidelined by his own government when it comes to carrying out important diplomacy with the United States that cannot be left in his untrustworthy hands. He has gotten to where he is solely because it has become politically beneficial for Netanyahu to cynically rely on him for political cover and because his party is a solid bloc of reliable Knesset votes. I cannot envision a situation in which anyone turns to Lieberman for real advice on issues of diplomacy or security, or where they feel that his sage counsel is necessary. He is the embodiment of everything that is currently wrong with Israeli politics, from his lack of any tact or moderation to his trail of corrupt and unsavory behavior. My fervent wish is that his resigning as foreign minister in the wake of this indictment will cast a new light on him, and that Netanyahu and the Israeli political class realize how much better off Israel is without Lieberman as its face to the world, even if the hiatus is a temporary one. The more that someone like Lieberman – who, let me be clear, I am going after not because of his political views but because of his utter mediocrity – is marginalized rather than elevated to senior cabinet level posts, the better off Israel will be.

The Relevance of Hanukkah To Israel

December 13, 2012 § 8 Comments

Commentaries about Hanukkah abound this year, from Hilary Krieger’s reminder in the New York Times that the holiday is about more than miraculous oil and plying children with presents to a typically obtuse Mondoweiss piece by Avigail Abarbanel decrying any celebration of Hanukkah as hypocritical because Israel is occupying the West Bank (but don’t worry, since Mondoweiss never conflates Judaism with Israel as we all know that criticism of the latter in no way ever has anything to do with the former). Tying in Krieger’s argument about what Hanukkah is really about with Abarbanel’s clumsy attempt to bash Israel over the head got me thinking that there is indeed a connection between Hanukkah and modern day Israel, but it is not the one that Abarbanel advances about Israeli behavior making Hanukkah unfit to be celebrated.

As Krieger points out, Hanukkah is actually about a revolt that paved the way for Jewish independence and freedom of worship, and the miracle of the oil burning for eight nights is only ancillary to the main story. Making Chanukkah primarily about lights burning in the Temple is the equivalent of celebrating on New Year’s Eve not because the calendar is about to change but because a giant ball is going to drop in Times Square. The reason Jews originally celebrated Hanukkah was because it represented the triumph of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel for the first time since the Babylonian expulsion four centuries earlier. Following hundreds of years of Judea being ruled by foreigners – Persians and Greeks – the Hasmoneans carried out a successful revolt against Judea’s Syrian Greek overlords and established a Jewish kingdom that lasted for a century before one side in the Judean civil war made the mistake of inviting the Roman general Pompey to settle things, which led to a Roman siege of Jerusalem and eventually Roman control over Judea. Hanukkah certainly has an important religious component in that it celebrates the end of Greek religious persecution – which, for those interested, is the only recorded instance of forced religious coercion by pagan conquerors in the ancient world – but just as vital is the celebration of Jewish political sovereignty and the establishment of a Jewish kingdom that was independent rather than a client of a larger empire. To me, Hanukkah has always been about this rather than about lights remaining kindled in the Temple.

Krieger mentions Maccabean religious zealotry and attacks on neighbors, and argues that these elements to the story require some Jewish introspection, as occurs on other Jewish holidays. The story is actually a lot more interesting than she details and requires vastly more real estate than the New York Times op-ed page provides. When the Hasmoneans defeated the Seleucids, they embarked on a mission to expand the borders of their new state. After the Seleucid empire broke apart, the Hasmoneans seized the opportunity to conquer the regions neighboring Judea, including the Galilee, Idumea, and Samaria, expanding into what is modern day Syria and Jordan. This expansion was not benign, however, as the Hasmoneans were not only looking to conquer territory but to create an explicitly Jewish kingdom. This meant forcing the local populations that they conquered to submit to conversion (which included being circumcised) or face expulsion, which was not exactly a great set of options. Over time, this enlarged kingdom became harder to defend and to govern, and the Judean political class divided into factions and civil war ensued. In many ways, what happened is reminiscent of Jack Snyder’s imperial overreach, and Jewish sovereignty was eventually snuffed out by the Romans.

So what’s the relevance of all this to modern day Israel? The reason Israel holds such meaning for many Jews around the world is because it represents the triumph of Jewish sovereignty in the historical Jewish homeland for the first time since the Hasmoneans defeated the Greeks in the Hanukkah story and established the kingdom of Judea. In a sense, Hanukkah is the Jewish holiday most intimately connected to Israel and the Zionist dream, precisely because it mirrors the struggle to create the Jewish state and because it is a holiday that has powerful political meaning behind it rather than a holiday that is purely a religious one. Hanukkah represents Jewish political and military power and Jewish political independence, and it is something to be proud of and grateful for if you are Jewish and have any sense of Jewish history at all. The Hasmoneans and their fellow 2nd century BCE Judeans were able to establish a state despite the odds being heavily stacked against them, and it is tough to look at the Hanukkah story and not see the parallels to David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Rabin, and the other founding fathers of Israel.

Ultimately, however, as great as it must have been to establish Jewish sovereignty after centuries of foreign rule, the Jewish state in the Hanukkah story collapsed under its own weight due to poor decisions and infighting. So too, there are many dangers looming in Israel’s path, some of which are out of its control and some of which are very much of its own making. It should be obvious to everyone, particularly as the possible beginnings of a third intifada are just now emerging, that hanging onto the West Bank is a failed policy that is hanging around Israel’s neck like an albatross, and it is one that will continually put Israel’s status as a Jewish democratic state at risk. The more that Israeli policies anger Western states that do not have the same base of support for Israel that exists in the U.S., the more Israel will rely solely on the U.S., and that in itself will endanger Israeli sovereignty as it will become harder for Israel to chart its own independent path. Just as ancient Judea expanded beyond what it could reasonably control and descended into destructive factionalism and eventually civil war, modern day Israel does not quite appear to be in such dire straits but resembles this scenario in enough of a way as to be unsettling. Hanukkah should not prompt one to reject any celebration of the holiday because Jews once fought against foreign occupiers and Israel is now occupying the West Bank, but it should certainly prompt a recognition that there are some lessons to be learned from ancient Jewish history. Just like the Hanukkah story of the kingdom of Judea, which began so triumphantly but ended tragically, Israel is also currently headed down a path that it desperately needs to find a way around so that Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland is not once again interrupted.

Thinking About Likud’s Future

May 9, 2012 § 4 Comments

One of the benefits of the unity coalition deal that Bibi Netanyahu struck with Shaul Mofaz and Kadima is that it strengthens Likud. Kadima’s dropping poll numbers and its new participation in the coalition mean that it will likely merge back with Likud before the next elections, which sets up Likud to gain more seats in October 2013 than it would have in September 2012. From an electoral standpoint, Likud is poised to come close to its 1981 highwater mark of 48 seats if Kadima dissolves and it is in an extremely strong position.

From a structural standpoint, however, Likud is not doing so well. Netanyahu presides over a fractious party that contains a serious split between the older generation of Likud princes and the younger generation of hardliners. Bradley Burston noted the sharp change in tone from previous Likud conventions, in which the head of the party was treated like a king, to Sunday’s Likud convention packed with mutineers who excoriated Netanyahu for not being sufficiently rightwing. Bibi was unable to even secure the position of convention chairman, and it must be a haunting irony for him that he strides the Israeli world like a colossus but cannot manage to impose the same iron will over his own party. Potential challengers like Moshe Feiglin and Danny Danon attack him on his right flank and make all sorts of veiled threats over perceived insufficient support for settlements, keeping Barak in the cabinet, and other issues on which Netanyahu is believed to be wobbly and not fully trusted. It is a maxim of Israeli politics that it is the right that brings down the right, and surely this is a fate that Netanyahu does not want to suffer, explaining his current flirtation with a bill that would override the High Court’s order to demolish Ulpana. Part of bringing Kadima into the government is that Netanyahu will have some space to maneuver should he want to tack to the center on selective issues.

Ultimately though, Netanyahu is going to face a choice over how far to go to placate his hardliners, and that may come sooner rather than later as the High Court’s Migron and Ulpana orders come to call. In light of all this, I will not be shocked if at some point before the 2013 elections we see Netanyahu move to kill off his own party and form a new one. This move is of course not without precedent in Israeli political history; Ben Gurion did it when he felt he had insufficient support from his Mapai colleagues leading to the creation of Rafi and then Labor, and more recently Ariel Sharon did it when he broke away from Likud to form Kadima in order to carry out the Gaza disengagement. Netanyahu is in a similar situation to Ben Gurion in that he clearly does not have an ideal level of support within the Likud ranks, and if he decides that he wants to make a serious move toward peace with the Palestinians he will find himself facing Sharon’s dilemma as well. Netanyahu is also now perfectly poised to form a new party from a position of strength since he would take all of the Kadima members with him should he bolt Likud to form a new party and would take more than half of the Likud MKs as well.

I don’t think this is something that anyone should expect to occur as it would be a huge gamble, and Netanyahu is historically not a gambler. The deal with Kadima though demonstrates a newfound propensity toward bold moves, and creating a new party would eliminate the various Likud thorns in Netanyahu’s side. I think the salient question on this issue is how serious Netanyahu is about making real strides on a Palestinian state. As I have noted before, Netanyahu is in many ways a prisoner of his party and his coalition. He has now solved the latter problem, but has not solved the former one. If Netanyahu does indeed have some more moderate inclinations aching to escape, then cutting off his rightwing flank and forming a new party is the obvious, and maybe only, move to make. Again, this is all theoretical at best and a little too pie-in-the-sky to probably occur, but given the utter surprise that greeted all analysts of Israeli politics on over the past two days, nothing can or should be ruled out anymore.

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