Israeli soldiers in shopping mall, Jerusalem
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem
Wall, Arab East Jerusalem
Arab East Jerusalem
Arab East Jerusalem
The Garden of Gethsemane, sight of Jesus' arrest, Jerusalem
The Wall, seen from the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem February 2006
The Dome of the Rock, seen from the Mount of Olives
Still, one must never forget that, as abusively as Israel treats its subjects, it treats its citizens better than any other state in the Middle East. For any person at all interested in civil rights, individual liberty and dignity, rule of law, and meritocracy, Israel is a…hold your breath, moral relativists…better place to live than any Arab country.
Israel is a society in the truest sense of the word. Mandatory military service for all Israeli citizens guarantees that their government can not sustain actions that are not supported by the people they represent; for better or for worse, Israelis are in it together. They are a tolerant society in every sense of the word. Twenty percent of Israelis are Arabs and, despite the inevitable alienation and loneliness that Israeli Arabs must often feel, they are accorded more legal rights and opportunities than Arabs living in any Arab country.
The Dome of the Rock, seen from the Mount of Olives
The Middle East is awash in myth, and Jerusalem is where they coalesce in blood and earth. Palestinian and Israeli nationalisms, especially Palestinian, are crippled by their focus on victimization. Societies who look back rather than forward, and who remember tragedies as more important than triumphs, are doomed to a cycle of violence that is intertwined with each side's myths about, in third-grade parlance, who started it.
Israelis and Palestinians both resent the very term "cycle of violence", because it implies a process of cold mathematical inevitability, with no beginning, no end, and no moral component. The Israeli narrative holds that the Palestinians and the Arab states "started it" by refusing to accept the U.N. partition proposal of 1947. The Palestinian and Arab narrative holds that the Israelis "started it" by creating a European emigre state, in part to assuage European guilt, in the very heart of the newly "independent" Arab world.
While debating these stances may be enticing to historians and irresistable to the actors involved, it is an ultimately futile act; the focus must instead be a consensus on which facts are established and irreversible. Among these facts must be the existence and legitimacy of Israel within its 1967 borders and the right of the Palestinian people to have a legitimately independent state. Another fact, which is studiously ignored by the United States, is the continued seizure and colonization of Palestinian land by Israel.
The tactic of suicide bombing by Palestinians has sucked the air out of the moral dimension to the conflict; such barbaric attacks inevitably divert attention from Israeli actions, which are somewhat less barbaric but far more damaging to the "peace process".
The decision by the Palestinians to begin suicide attacks against Israeli civilians was taken in the aftermath of the Oslo Agreement in 1993. To American eyes, the images from the White House lawn said all that needed to be said; the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the PLO had shaken hands. They had signed an assortment of documents. They had made peace.
What was ignored in the West, and especially America, was the implementation of these accords by the Israeli government. As Yasser Arafat, the romantic and despicable chairman of the PLO, was given authority over small and isolated enclaves of Palestinian land, the Israelis rapidly accelerate their seizure and colonization of ever-greater portions of the West Bank. So, while the Palestinians were given balkanized scraps of sovereignty, Israel ensured that the Palestinian state that would theoretically result from the completion of the "peace process" would not include vast areas of the West Bank, especially those adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem.
Militant Palestinian factions discerned Israel's strategy very clearly; the peace "process" would drag on as slowly as possible, incrementaly ceding nominal control of bantustans to Arafat and his corrupt clique. All the while, Israel would create new and permanent facts on the ground by exponentially increasing their rate of settlement in the West Bank, making a full eventual withdrawal from the occupied West Bank politically and emotionally impossible for Israelis. In short, Israel was invested in the process of creating the perception that wide swaths of the West Bank would be annexed to Israel at the end of the peace process.
Israelis and Palestinians both resent the very term "cycle of violence", because it implies a process of cold mathematical inevitability, with no beginning, no end, and no moral component. The Israeli narrative holds that the Palestinians and the Arab states "started it" by refusing to accept the U.N. partition proposal of 1947. The Palestinian and Arab narrative holds that the Israelis "started it" by creating a European emigre state, in part to assuage European guilt, in the very heart of the newly "independent" Arab world.
While debating these stances may be enticing to historians and irresistable to the actors involved, it is an ultimately futile act; the focus must instead be a consensus on which facts are established and irreversible. Among these facts must be the existence and legitimacy of Israel within its 1967 borders and the right of the Palestinian people to have a legitimately independent state. Another fact, which is studiously ignored by the United States, is the continued seizure and colonization of Palestinian land by Israel.
The tactic of suicide bombing by Palestinians has sucked the air out of the moral dimension to the conflict; such barbaric attacks inevitably divert attention from Israeli actions, which are somewhat less barbaric but far more damaging to the "peace process".
The decision by the Palestinians to begin suicide attacks against Israeli civilians was taken in the aftermath of the Oslo Agreement in 1993. To American eyes, the images from the White House lawn said all that needed to be said; the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the PLO had shaken hands. They had signed an assortment of documents. They had made peace.
What was ignored in the West, and especially America, was the implementation of these accords by the Israeli government. As Yasser Arafat, the romantic and despicable chairman of the PLO, was given authority over small and isolated enclaves of Palestinian land, the Israelis rapidly accelerate their seizure and colonization of ever-greater portions of the West Bank. So, while the Palestinians were given balkanized scraps of sovereignty, Israel ensured that the Palestinian state that would theoretically result from the completion of the "peace process" would not include vast areas of the West Bank, especially those adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem.
Militant Palestinian factions discerned Israel's strategy very clearly; the peace "process" would drag on as slowly as possible, incrementaly ceding nominal control of bantustans to Arafat and his corrupt clique. All the while, Israel would create new and permanent facts on the ground by exponentially increasing their rate of settlement in the West Bank, making a full eventual withdrawal from the occupied West Bank politically and emotionally impossible for Israelis. In short, Israel was invested in the process of creating the perception that wide swaths of the West Bank would be annexed to Israel at the end of the peace process.
The Palestinian people understood what Arafat was too vain to see. The Israelis never intended to give back the whole of the West Bank (or Judaea and Samaria, as many Jews insist on calling it). The peace process was merely to be exploited to buy time to build up as many Israeli settlements as possible on Arab land. The Palestinians came to see this, and they attacked.
Colonizing territory that has been seized in war is one of the most fundamental taboos of international law, and Israel's colonization of the West Bank needs to be seen for what it is. Israel has not simply been occupying the West Bank for forty years; it has increasingly been transplanting Israeli citizens onto Palestinian land, using tactics of house demolition, orchard razing, and Jewish-only roads.
As soon as the peace process began in the early 1990's, and it became clear to the Israeli leadership that a Palestinian state was increasingly innevitable, a rapid settlement of large swaths of Palestinian lands began. This was not coincidence. The Israelis never negotiated in good faith with the Palestinians, but the Palestinians' decision to murder civilians has drowned out this fundamental fact.
The wall which is now being built throughout the West Bank has, of course, two very different interpretations. Israel says the wall is necessary to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel. Palestinians say that the wall is designed to annex lands from the West Bank and make these lands part of Israel in any possible future "peace". Both sides are right.
Colonizing territory that has been seized in war is one of the most fundamental taboos of international law, and Israel's colonization of the West Bank needs to be seen for what it is. Israel has not simply been occupying the West Bank for forty years; it has increasingly been transplanting Israeli citizens onto Palestinian land, using tactics of house demolition, orchard razing, and Jewish-only roads.
As soon as the peace process began in the early 1990's, and it became clear to the Israeli leadership that a Palestinian state was increasingly innevitable, a rapid settlement of large swaths of Palestinian lands began. This was not coincidence. The Israelis never negotiated in good faith with the Palestinians, but the Palestinians' decision to murder civilians has drowned out this fundamental fact.
The wall which is now being built throughout the West Bank has, of course, two very different interpretations. Israel says the wall is necessary to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel. Palestinians say that the wall is designed to annex lands from the West Bank and make these lands part of Israel in any possible future "peace". Both sides are right.
The American government promotes a view in which Palestinian terrorism is being directed by groups who reject the very existence of Israel and are entirely devoid of genuine or rational greivance. Little mention is made of the seizure of Palestinian land, however, as all Israeli actions, especially after 9/11, tend to be seen as defense against terrorism.
Still, one must never forget that, as abusively as Israel treats its subjects, it treats its citizens better than any other state in the Middle East. For any person at all interested in civil rights, individual liberty and dignity, rule of law, and meritocracy, Israel is a…hold your breath, moral relativists…better place to live than any Arab country.
Israel is a society in the truest sense of the word. Mandatory military service for all Israeli citizens guarantees that their government can not sustain actions that are not supported by the people they represent; for better or for worse, Israelis are in it together. They are a tolerant society in every sense of the word. Twenty percent of Israelis are Arabs and, despite the inevitable alienation and loneliness that Israeli Arabs must often feel, they are accorded more legal rights and opportunities than Arabs living in any Arab country.
The Palestinian Arabs that were not driven from their homes and were able to stay inside Israel live far freer lives than the Palestinian refugees who were taken in by other Arab states. In Israel, cousins of Israel’s sworn and eternal Arab enemies are elected to serve in parliament. And, surrounded by enemies, Israelis dare to live as free people in an ocean of despotic thugs.
Still, we are faced with the dilemma. How can such a liberal (in the real sense of the word) and overachieving society treat half of the people under their control as subjects rather than citizens? The myth that American leaders need to disavow is the one of Israel as the pure-hearted David fending off the seething Arab Goliath. There are two Israels. One is an oasis of freedom in the most un-free part of the world. The other is a very pillar of that un-free part of the world. They way to get rid of the latter is to end the occupation.
Still, we are faced with the dilemma. How can such a liberal (in the real sense of the word) and overachieving society treat half of the people under their control as subjects rather than citizens? The myth that American leaders need to disavow is the one of Israel as the pure-hearted David fending off the seething Arab Goliath. There are two Israels. One is an oasis of freedom in the most un-free part of the world. The other is a very pillar of that un-free part of the world. They way to get rid of the latter is to end the occupation.
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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