Mearshimer & Walt: The Questions They Never Asked

Everybody's favorite academic realists turned anti-Israel polemicists are back. Mearshimer and Walt's book-length expansion of their infamous "Israel Lobby" hits the stores next week. As a result, we will soon see, both in print and in the blogosphere, a rehash of the original debates that surrounded the publication of the article along with a phony debate over whether the book "fixes" the various flaws exposed by M&W's critics.

The initial reports are, with the exception of addressing the gaping hole that resulted from the near total absence of Christian Zionism in the original , the book essential duplicates the original argument. And while the various factual inaccuracies that have been pointed out help clarify that M&W had long left the province of rigorous academic thought, it is the fundamental flaws in the structure of the argument itself that exposed the original for the fraud that it was. Which means that for the book to indeed "fix" what was wrong in the original, it has a massive reconstruction project that M&W based on their post-article martyr tour have no intention of undertaking.

M&W's original article had essentially three elements. First, M&W asserted that there is a disconnect between US policy towards Israel and more broadly in the Middle East and the US's strategic interests. Second, M&W argued that this disconnect is due to the power and influence of the "Israel Lobby." Third, M&W purports to describe how the "Lobby" effects the disconnect between US interests and policies.

M&W gave their paper all the trapping of legitimate scholarship - a myriad of footnotes and a dry, dispassionate tone. What they did not provide, however, was rigor. If M&W were truly interested in examining the issues they posed in their paper, rather than backfilling an argument to a conclusion they had already reached, they would have had to have asked and answered the following questions:

(1) Is there in fact a disconnect between US policy towards Israel and the Middle East & US strategic interests?

This is of course the question that M&W seem best qualified to address given their past scholarship and credentials. Whatever one thinks of the merits of a rigorous Realist analysis, one would expect M&W to construct one, providing a detailed and nuanced cost-benefit analysis from a realist perspective of the American-Israeli "special relationship."

Instead, M&W treat the foundation stone of their argument as self-evident. They make a cursory argument regarding the diminution of Israel's value after the Cold War. However, the rest of this section, which discusses the liabilities that the US-Israel partnership imposes on the US's relationships with the other regimes in the region, relies mainly on a recitation of self-serving statements of Arab political elites without further analysis.

The reason M&W view the cost-benefit analysis of the current US-Israel relationship to be so self-evidently negative is that included at the heart of this analysis is an assumption that the large cost of the Iraq war should be attributed to the US- Israel relationship. Most of the criticism of the claim that the Israel Lobby led ths US into Iraq has focused on the conspiratorial and latently anti-Semitic aspects of it. But the dubiousness of the Israel-Iraq link is equally damning to M&W's substantive analysis. If the true costs of the US-Israeli relationship are limited to lucrative aid packages and peeved oil barons, then it is impossible to construct a Realist analysis that results in these costs overwhelming the benefits provided by the strategic US-Israeli partnership.

(2) Are there other reasons (besides the Israel Lobby) that explain this disconnect?

The obvious factors to look at here overlap but are essentially ideological and political - the moral claims of the Israeli position and the cultural affinity of the two nations. (The very idea that moral concerns lay outside our strategic interests is itself problematic, but at least consistent with "realist" doctrine.) These factors could either move elite or public opinion towards Israel and away from the "correct" policy that would result from a "dispassionate" Realist analysis.

In an odd move for a pair of Realists, the only attention given to this question is lengthy, scatter-shot attempt to rebut the moral case for Israel. This consists mainly of stringing together various tropes of anti-Israel propaganda and concluding that any tension between strategic necessity and moral principle is illusory. This entire exercise is a fraud, because M&W would reject the notion that even if the moral scorecard came out differently the result should be different.

What M&W do not however shed any light on the critical factor of public opinion. They do not answer the question of whether US's Israel policy is out of line not only with how American's should see US interests (if we were fortunate enough to be ruled by an American Bismarck), but how Americans actually view US interests.

Moving onto the M&W section on how the Israel Lobby purportedly functions, you would expect an analysis of the following:

(3) How do foreign policy lobbies function?

A scholarly article would properly set the Israel Lobby in context. How effective are foreign policy lobbies, domestic and foreign, at shifting U.S. policies? Does this salience of the issue reduce the impact of lobbies? For example, the anti-Castro Cuban emigrant lobby has traditionally had a stranglehold over our Cuba policy, an issue that most Americans are wholly indiffirent towards. M&W are proposing that the Israel Lobby is strong enough not only to steer low profile military aid packages Israel's direction, but to drag America into full-scale armed conflict. It would help in evaluating the feasibility of this claim if there is any historical precedent supporting it.

(4) Are there other foreign policy lobbies shaping our policy towards Israel and Middle East?

Similarly, a scholarly article would address the various other interests that compete to shape American Middle East policy - military contractors, domestic oil companies, trans-national corporations, the Saudis and other oil exporters, etc. M&W show absolutely no interest in these countervailing factors. To some extent, M&W avoid this area because it is far outside their realm of expertise. But another reason for the absence is that these lobbies all reinforce the Hamiltonian Realist agenda, which sees securing strategic resources and promoting American corporate interests as twin pillars of American foreign policy goals.

(5) What are the Israel Lobby's goals? What have been its greatest successes and failures?

You would think that this question would be at the heart of any genuine analysis of the "Israel Lobby's" power and influence. M&W have a unfocused discussion about the goals of securing the West Bank and preserving Israeli military hegemony. Additionally, M&W make much out of AIPAC's influence in a handful of Congressional elections. Yet, amazingly M&W do not even begin to touch on the high-profile showdowns between U.S. administrations and Israel during the past 30 years, or the success or failure of pro-Israel advocates in shifting American policy. There is absolutely no analysis of the First Lebanon war, the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia, the Bush/Baker-Shamir showdown over settlement expansion or the Clinton administration's hands-on supervision of the Oslo process.

(6) Who is the Israel Lobby? What is the relationship between the Israel Lobby and American Jews?

M&W's failure to examine what the Israel Lobby has and has not achieved is connected intimately with their failure to clearly define exactly who the "Israel Lobby" is. On the one hand, it is relatively straightforward challenge to document AIPAC's successes and failures. On the other hand, once the "Israel Lobby" is expanded to an amorphous group that includes all American Jews with warm feelings towards Israel, any honest analysis would expose the competing jumble of contradictory viewpoints and agendas of such a group.

M&W appear to be trapped by the backfilling nature of their argument, which is designed to ultimately reach the Iraq war. However, neither AIPAC nor Israel were at the front of the line beating the drums for war with Iraq. The case for blaming Israel for the Iraq debacle requires tabbing various neocons in the Bush administration as agents of the Israel Lobby. But putting aside the quite laughable assertion that Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld were less powerful than Feith, Perle and Wolfowitz, there is the serious problem that the neocon agenda frequently differed from that of the formal pro-Israel Lobbies, let alone that of the Zionist liberals who had previously embraced the Oslo process.

Mearshimer and Walt thus fail to seriously ask let alone answer any of the questions that would need in order to undertake a serious academic study of the impact of pro-Israel lobbies on American foreign policy. The result was an article that relied on innuendo, conspiracy and polemic to fill in its gaping logical and analytic holes. A mere tweaking or expansion of the article (e.g. sprinkling in a chapter on Christian Zionism or expanding the polemic to US-Syrian relations) can't possibly salvage the book as a serious work of scholarship. Unfortunately, these "fixes" will be enough to sell many copies to an audience that either doesn't know what scholarly analysis looks like or doesn't care.

Hakuna Fatah-ta

The Peace Process is back in full swing. If the prisoner release and accompanying editorials urging additional Israeli concessions to strengthen Fatah weren't clear enough indications, the Bush administration's announcement of full fledged Peace Conference confirms it.

The "West Bank First" plan comes in the wake of the Hamas victory in Gaza, which put a bloody coda on the failure of the "Gaza First" plan trotted out after Israel's unilateral withdrawal. From Day One, the plan was doomed, as the greenhouses left behind on the settlement sites were looted and quickly replaced with rocket launchers. A democratic election contested by rival armed militia-parties failed to solve the Palestinian internal disarray and hopes for the burdens of governance to moderate Hamas proved futile.

Now however, the Fatah collapse in Gaza has led to the corpse of Oslo be reanimated once again - in the West Bank at least. Once again, Israel and Fatah are ostensibly negotiating over a transition to a two-state solution, entailing in a Fatah-run state in most of the West Bank (and at least theoretically, Gaza.) From all indications, the Bush Administration, Olmert and the Peace Processors (and their cheerleaders in the punditocracy) appear bent on repeating the same mistakes that doomed Oslo.

First and foremost, they are continuing to build a Peace Process around a cult of personality. The entire edifice of Oslo was based on the shaky foundation of Arafat. Every Israeli concession, and every American intervention was focused on one goal - strengthening Arafat in the hopes he would deliver his end of the bargain. As a result, Arafat's refusal to put away the terror option and fully commit to a negotiated two-state solution doomed Oslo. Moreover, rather than leaving the Palestinians the building blocks towards statehood, the Oslo years left Palestinians poorer in everything but militias.

Despite this, the latest chatter from the Peace Processors is centered around one goal: strengthening Abbas. Once again, the entire process is dependent on the whims and capacities of the head of Fatah. It is All About Abbas. As a result, the tough work of building functional institutions of Palestinian governance is being shunted aside for photo-op summits. The release of Fatah militia are presented to Abbas, but little is being done to give the average Palestinian a peace dividend.

One would hope that some lessons were learned from the fiasco of Oslo. That this time, Israeli concessions will be tethered to concrete steps taken by Fatah, and the US and the EU would focus not only on Fatah's ability to control terror, but also on its ability to deliver sound government and services. Further, one would hope that Jordan and Egypt would be brought in to play an intimate day-to-day role in ensuring progress is made, and not simply permitted to take cynicallyl disengage between summit meetings. And most importantly, that the Bush administration realize the folly of waiting for some grand breakthrough of a final status agreement, rather than pressing for concrete steps towards dismantling settlements and resettling refugees immediately so that even if the plan fails, progress is made to an ultimate solution to the problem.

But then again, for the Peace Processors, these are unnecessary quibbles with that get the great vision of the Two-State Solution. As long as hands are shaking, light-bulbs are flashing and symbolic Israeli concessions keep flowing to Abbas, there is nothing to worry about it. Hakuna Fatah-ta.

Progressive Jews: Lifting Up the Prophetic Voice in a Time of Propoganda

The AJC's essay on Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism has provoked an intense debate in the American Jewish community. Rosenfeld's paper has its flaws, the most serious one being its conflation of virulent anti-Zionism with more benign a-Zionist navel gazing. However, the essay's core insight regarding the dangers of anti-Zionist rhetoric and hyperbolic criticism of progressive Jews in the context of the recent wave of anti-Semitism is fundamentally correct. With a few notable exceptions (Gershom Gorenberg in particular) the response of progressive Jews has been universally dismissive. The AJC is charged with trying to silence "all criticism" of Israel by equating it with anti-Semitism. The charge is wholly unfounded. Rosenfeld's principal targets in the essay criticize Israel's legitimacy, not its policies. But his sloppiness leads his endorsement of debate over Israeli policies to ring hollow and pro forma.


The AJC paper raises a particular dilemma faced by Justice-seeking Jews – how to maintain faith with the universalistic, prophetic elements of Judaism while avoiding the providing of rhetorical cover for the new anti-Semitism. For genuinely progressive Jews (as opposed to leftists who claim their Jewish ancestry when convenient for rhetorical purposes), the prophetic imperative is central to our identity. The Jewish people are chosen (whether by G-d or through their unique historical experience) for the task of tikkun olam (repairing the world). We are made holy through our righteousness. The Jewish state therefore should be more than merely a state like any other, it should be an or l'goyim (light unto the nations).


Accordingly, justice-seeking Jews are compelled to point out where Israel has missed the mark. The widening gap between rich and poor, the neglect of the environment and rampant corruption are all blights. The discriminatory short-changing of budgetary resources for Israel's Arab citizens is a travesty. Moreover, Israel's fighting of its just war of self-defense is not without blemish. The occupation of the West Bank is corrosive. There is acquiesence to settlement expansion and degradation of Palestinian civilians that is untethered to Israel's security needs. These problems are all pressing, and cannot wait for the resolution Israel's security problems or the emergence of the Arab and Islamic worlds from their current state of dysfunction. This too, is a requirement of the prophetic imperative – the time for righteousness is always now, not in some messianic future.

And yet, Israel is in a war in which its enemies seek not merely its retreat, but its elimination. Israel's enemies understand the modern battlefield, and they have conducted a ideological offensive to complement the spasms of terror that for now is all they can marshal against Israel. This propaganda campaign seeks to de-legitimize Jewish sovereignity and to legitimize the killing of Jews as valid response to the "crimes" of Zionism. Anti-Zionist propaganda exploits progressive biases by the selective embrace and cooption of liberal and progressive values. Anti-Zionists do not stop with attacking Israel, but cleverly train their rhetorical fire on Diaspora Zionists as well.

Progressive Jews are particularly susceptible to the themes of anti-Zionist propaganda. In particular, they are highly supceptible to what Richard Landes has brilliantly termed as Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome - "it is all our fault; and if we can only be better, we can fix anything/everything." This is after all, what the prophetic tradition teaches us - that we as Jews are to focus on our failings, our failure to live up to our high moral standards. Yet, as Landes aptly notes such self-criticism "leads to a kind of self-absorption in which one loses any sense of the other side of any conflict." The result is a prophetic narcissism - criticism of Israel without context in the name of meeting the moral perfectionist needs of the progressive Jews, rather than seeking a just solution to the conflict. This one-sided focus on the sins of the Jewish state meshes perfectly with anti-Zionist narratives. The words of progressive Jews are wielded as tools to convince non-Jewish progressives to opppose Israel.

Right-wing Zionists, such as Morton Klein of the ZOA, would take the last point to a logical,extreme conclusion - because any criticism of Israel could play into the hand of anti-Zionists, no public criticism (except that of insufficient hawkishness) by American Jews is warranted. This, however, is simply an unacceptable answer for a progressive Zionist. If Israel can survive the intense, lively internal debate regarding its policies and values, it can surely survive participation in these debates by concerned Diaspora Jews. The following are some guidelines for how to think about responsible criticism of Israel.

Anti-Zionism Is Out of Bounds

This is a pretty easy red line to follow. Now is simply not the time to debate the merits of a Jewish state. Perhaps in some distant post-nationalist future where anti-Semitism in the Diaspora is a distant memory the merits of the Zionist project can be debated, but in the here and now the elimination of Jewish state will cost the lives of far too many Jews.
This does not rule out a-Zionist (or for the semantically challenged "post-Zionist") navel gazing – progressive Jews should feel free to talk all they want about how Israel doesn't "speak" to them.

Avoid Anti-Zionist Buzzwords

The prophetic voice lends itself to hyperbole, especially in the face of inertia. The problem is that when progressive Jews channel their inner Jeremiah – excoriating Israel's failings in the sharpest possible language they wind up repeating anti-Zionist talking points. Terms like "Nazi" and "apartheid" draw inapt comparisons and their value for shock effect and hyperbolic intensity is outweighed by the harm. The "Nazis" represent the highest form of evil and the greatest threat to civilization in modern times. A state that engages in "Nazi" policies is one that should be eliminated. Similarly, an "apartheid" regime that is constructed around racism, and therefore should be an international pariah. There are accurate ways to condemn the vices of Israeli policies without resorting to language that denotes Israel as beyond redemption.

Fight Both Fronts With Equal Passion

Progressive Jews should be just as willing to face the wrath of progressives by denying dishonest tropes about Israel as they are willing to face the anger of other Zionists by speaking unpleasant truths about Israel. Taking a "no enemies to the left" stance results in progressive Jews staying silent in front of slanderous attacks on Israel and other Jews. The alleged imbalance of power between right-wing Zionists and anti-Zionists is not only myopic given the strength of anti-Zionism outside Jewish circles and the United States, but also an abdication of responsibility.

Commit to Intellectual Honesty

Similarly, progressive Jews need to be intellectually honest in their criticism. This means acknowledging facts that exculpate Israeli actions as much as those which incriminate them, regardless of whether these fact facts support right-wing Zionist narratives. In particular, progressive Jews need to self-diagnose for Masochistic Omniopotence Syndrome - to acknowledge the limitations of Jews and Israel in unilaterally making peace. (Camp David revisionism is a particularly egregious example - progressive Jews would much rather uncritically adopt Palestinian spin on the talks than deal with the serious obstacles to peace raised by Fatah's strategic decision to respond to Barak's offer with violence.)

Have Some Humility

Unlike Amos or Isaiah, modern progressive Jews don't have direct Divine guidance when we engage in prophetic rhetoric. Just as the Israelis making policy are falliable in their judgment so are the critics of these policies. The command to pursue justice is blindingly obvious, but the route there is not always clear.

Post-Post-Zionism

I don't get Post-Zionism. Its the not that the concept is difficult to wrap my head around. The idea is quite simple - that a Jewish state in Israel is no longer necessary or desirable. When I was first exposed to Post-Zionism, in Israel during the heady days of Oslo, it had a logic to it; it was wrong, but at least it made theoretical sense. Jewish nationalism after all would be an anachronism in a New Middle East, where Jews and Arabs lived together in peace, harmony. and hummus. Israeli post-Zionism in the Oslo era came from secular Israelis' ennui with living in the Jew among the nations. Post-Zionism was the desperate plea of Sheinkin Street for normalcy, for the sunshine of the Tel Aviv midrachov to escape from the dark shadow of the Judean hills.

But the latest wave of self-professed Post-Zionists are primarily progressive American Jews. The term, like many monikers employing "post" is embraced as an emblem of generational pride. It is a cry of disastified Hebrew School alumni who found the three pillar Holocaust, Israel, Federation model of civic American Judaism uninspired (not to mention the spiritual deadness of rote Bar-Mitzvah drilling.) I empathise with their plight. How could any of us not emerged at least "post-" something from that experience. I myself, came out post-denominational - I highly recommend it.

But those who would purport to claim that they've moved "beyond" Zionism, have the obligation of at least weaving a narrative of how Zionism became obsolete. The Sheinkin Street post-Zionists had such a narrative. Israel was created to provide Jews with a safe haven so that they could pursue a normal life (to the extent Aviv Geffen can be considered "normal") like anyone else. Imminent peace with its Arab neighbors meant that Zionism had accomplished its goal. Israel could now progress to being a state of all its citizens - allowing for an Israeli identity distinct from its Jewish roots. The problem with Olso post-Zionism was that Oslo proved to be a chimera. Peace was not just around the corner; rather what was around the corner terror campaign waged against the very symbols of normalcy of the post-Zionist dream: pizza parlors, cafes and university cafeterias.

The young American post-Zionists (or purely for the purpose of coining a gratuitous acronyms, YAPZ) don't speak of a messianic New Middle East. Rather, the YAPZ speak of the messiness of Zionism and their personal dillusionment with it. YAPZ are discomforted by the excesses of Jewish nationalism, indeed with the idea of a nationalism itself. They recoil at what fee as pressure to conform to the party line from the mainstream American Jewish community. YAPZ reject the idea that secular Jewish culture should be centered in Israel; rejecting a negation of the cultural Diaspora as much as they do the negation of the political Diaspora.

What YAPZ do not however, is provide a coherent narrative of the obsolescence of Zionism. Certainly, there is value in reclaiming Yiddish culture, but the idea that Israel has ceased to be an incubator of Jewish cultural creativity is absurd. One might not like all of the ideas emanating from Israel, but it remains a fertile source for Jewish evolution, if for no other reason than the sharp contrast it provides with American Jewish life. The concept that Israel has fulfilled its political mission - and that the Jewish people will be more secure should Israel lose its Jewish status runs headlong into present realities of Arab politics and the long historical track record of the Jewish Diaspora.

So, all of passionate arguments of the YAPZ reject not Zionism itself, but rather the childish, emotive brand that spoke to American Jews in the 1960s and 1970s - Boomer Zionism. But rather than replacing the childish Zionism of their parents with a mature, nuanced Zionism, YAPZ have turned to adolescent rebellion in choosing to identify themselves as "beyond" or indifferent to the Zionist project.

In reality the majority of these self-proclaimed Post Zionists are simply Zionists who oppose expansion of the settlements, or Zionists who believe Palestinian rights deserve more consideration, or Zionists who believe that American Jews should be able to criticize Israeli politics, or Zionists who prefer to listen to neo-klezmer than Sarit Hadad.

Above all these, bright, passionate, progressive American Jews need to see that it is time to stop rebelling against an Zionism they are embarrased by and time to start building a Zionism they can embrace.

Marginalizing or Mainstreaming Jewish Anti-Zionism

The AJC, the Brookings Institute of the American Jewish community, has recently published a controversial new report by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism", which essentially charges certain left-wing Jewish thinkers with giving "aid and comfort" to the anti-Semites. The targets of the reports range from explicit Jewish anti-Zionists such as Noam Chomsky and NYU professor Tony Judt to progressive Jewish writers such as Douglass Rushkoff and Daniel Boyarin, whose relationship with Israel is far more ambivalent.

Mobius, the creator of the progressive Jewish blog Jewschool, attacked the report in one of his trademark blistering blog posts and again in a radio interview on the show "Beyond the Pale".

...[T]here is no safe space for legitimate criticism of Israel within the Jewish community itself. Those who question Israeli policies are hastily isolated, demonized, marginalized and excluded. The resentment of this treatment frequently results in movement towards the farthest fringes of the discourse and the adoption of a tarnished impression of the Jewish community.

At one level, Mobius is correct. The goal of the AJC report is precisely to ensure that certain views about Israel that are prominent among progressives remain marginal in American Jewish discourse. Rosenfeld does so by linking these views to anti-Semitism. Mobius, however, muddies the water a bit in his attack. Surely, anti-Zionists such as Chomsky and Judt are not merely "questioning Israeli policies." They are questioning the very existence of the state of Israel.

It is precisely this blurring of the line between Jewish anti-Zionism and other progressive Jewish criticism of Israel that is most serious problem with the Rosenfeld report. The report notes the dangers of hyberbolic rhetoric by Jews criticizing Israel; yet certainly some of this rhetoric comes from Progressive Zionists, who are seeking to reform the Jewish State rather than erase it. Similarly, a writer like Douglass Rushkoff, who finds difficultly idenitifying with Israel and finds meaning in univeraslist elements of the Jewish tradition, is best characterized as a-Zionist or ambi-Zionist. Rosenfeld paints with too broad a brush.

This lack of clarity, however, is not at the heart of Mobius' problem with the AJC and mainstream American Jewish community. Rather Mobius' main issue is that "opposing Jewish statehood for ethical, moral or religious reasons, or criticizing Israel for those reasons, is defined as antisemitic." In other words, Mobius objects to the effort to marginalize all progressive Jewish voices critical of Israel, including the anti-Zionists.

The question, therefore, is should anti-Zionism be mainstreamed in American Jewish discourse, invited back from the sidelines, where it has been banished since the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. I believe it should not, for two reasons.

First, there is some merit to Rosenfeld's claim that Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into and abets anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. There are certainly non anti-Semitic variants of anti-Zionism. Tony Judt, for example, appears to be motivated by a genuine post-nationalism prevalent in many European intellectuals. Similarly, there are academic arguments to be as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the "Jewish Question" in the 20th Century; but what is done is done, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews outside North America have been gathered into the historic Jewish homeland. The idea of peaceful, stable, binational state given the current state of the Arab world is farcical. There is no end to a Jewish state in Israel that will not lead to tremendous Jewish suffering. Even those progressives who are ambivalent with the idea of Israel need to honestly address the reality of Israel.

Moreover, the "new anti-Semitism" described by the AJC is not a Zionist propaganda construction. There is a virulent rise in Jew-hatred, most significantly from radical Islam, that uses opposition to Israel as a front. The careful academic parsing of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism pales in the face of the blood libels played on Arab state television or the cartoons that pass for "political commentary" in Arab or Iranian newspapers. This is true engine of anti-Zionism in the world today, in which arguments against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and human right violations are focused solely on one nation - which is not coincidentally the Jewish nation.

Second, progresisve Jewish support and even tolerance of anti-Zionism is a disaster for Progressive Zionism. It blurs the line between criticism of Israeli policies and Israel itself.
It plays right into right-wing Zionists who dismiss all criticism of Israel as masking an agenda to destroy Israel. It saps energy away from those Diaspora Jews such as the New Israel Fund whose vision of Israel as a "light unto nations" runs counter to the American Jews who support the competing visions of the settlers and the haredim. Progressive Zionism acknowledges that Israel is imperfect, that Jewish nationalism - like all nationalism - is problematic, that there is a moral cost to assuring the security and freedom of the Jewish people.

Given the reality of the world today, anti-Zionism remains a dangerous idea, one that is rightly marginalized in the American Jewish community. However, considering the major problems facing Israel, external and internal, physical, moral and spiritual, the need for a vigorous Progressive Zionism has never been greater.

Olmert's Subtraction by Addition

As a result of the botched war against Hezbollah, Ehud Olmert's government has been listing like a wounded duck for months. Olmert had entered office with the promise of breaking through the the traditional Labor-Likud stalemate on the the Palestinian problem through the bold platform of unilateral withdrawa. He has been reduced to fighting for his political life.

It is therefore understandable that Olmert would seek to steady his faltering government by bringing in another party into the government to serve as ballast. And it is also no suprise that he has turned first to Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beteinu party, which can serve as a counterweight to his fractious Labor ally inside the coalition while keeping Bibi and Likud in the political wilderness.

Olmert sees Lieberman as simply another merchant at the Israeli political shuk. In this, he is deeply mistaken. Lieberman quite openly fancies himself as an petit Putin. After all, Lieberman launched Yisrael B'Teinu by railing against the "excesses" of Israel's law enforcement and indepedent judiciary. (Lieberman is the only politician in Israel whose main problem with the judiciary has nothing to do with its controversial forays into religion or national security, but rather for simply upholding its mandate to enforce Israel's criminal laws. Finally, the Israeli branch of the Russian mafia had a party concerned about its needs.)


It was not until the past election that Lieberman was able to broaden his appeal beyond the Russian community - redrawing Israel's borders to exclude much of its Arab population. In doing so, Lieberman took the Sharon/Olmert demographic argument, used to support unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, to a logical, if disturbing, extreme. The argument is seductive - if Israeli Arabs want to identify with the "Palestinian," let them be Palestinians.

Despite his stated position that the Arab majority areas of the Galilee should be excised from Israel, Lieberman opposes Olmert's plan to withdrawal from the West Bank. He rejects any tangible steps towards preserving a Jewish democracy. He is content to merely demagogue against Israeli Arabs as a means to increase his own power. Unlike Olmert, Lieberman is not interested in tangible steps to preserve a Jewish democracy - or democracy at all for that matter.

Which brings us to Lieberman's current pet issue - replacing Israel's fractious parlimentary system with a presidential system. It doesn't take any imagination to figure out who Lieberman envisions as the future Israeli presidente, unchecked by the inconveniences of parlimentary compromise - and if he got his way with additional "reforms", unshackled by an Israel's agressively indepedent judiciary.

Olmert believes he can "control" Lieberman, that if he buys enough time, he can find a way to move forward either with or without the cover of negotiations with the Palestinians. He may view this latest tactic as essential to moving forward against the greatest threat to Israeli democracy. But in doing so, he is exposing Israeli democracy to a threat that while less obvious, may no less dangerous.

Bulldozing Out of Gaza

Its been a bad month for Peace in the Middle East. Following months of positive developments, there have recently been a number of setbacks - the strong showing by Hamas in local elections, an increasing level of violence spilling out of Gaza and the depression confirmation that despite Abbas' rhetoric in English, he has done little to curb virulent anti-Semetic incitement from being broadcast on Palestinian television. All of which would seem to be fuel to fire of the hawkish opposition to Sharon's Gaza plan. Yet on Sharon presses, impervious to the desperate settler protests, whose civil disobedience campaign has led average Israelis to respond with a combination of annoyance and indifference.


The Peace Processors are equally miffed at Sharon these days, for his similar head-down approach to link Ma'aleh Adumim, the large Jewish suburb east of Jerusalem, to the capital. The final status of Jerusalem is to be determined, they point out according to mutual agreement of both sides under the Road Map to the Preliminary Initial Prefectory Peace Process Towards an Eventual Agreement. (The final status under such agreement is of course, according to the Processors, is joint sovreignity over an open and peaceful city. There is even talk of recruiting the Jedi Knights to "keep the peace" given they are no longer wanted in the Galactic Republic).


It seems to me that if Sharon is upsetting both the settlers and the Processors than he must be doing something right. In fact, Sharon's plan for a strategic withdrawl, in which Gaza settlements are abandoned, while Israeli control over Jerusalem is strengthed is in the finest tradition of Israel's founders. Ben-Gurion and his Mapainiks took an approach to building a Jewish state that was pragmatic, unsentimental and farsighted - ever act was taken with the ultimate goal in mind, and with the proper priorities. As Benni Morris aptly noted in a TNR article, Sharon, despite his many years of Likud affiliation, is truly the "Last Mapainik"


In contrast, the opponents to the Gaza withdrawal are the ideological descendants of Begin and the Herut. Like Begin they valorize the ideal vision of the Jewish state, and disdain compromises with reality as weak. Thus, even for those who do not attach to Gaza religious significance as part of the land of Israel, nothing short of total victory in which the Arabs have laid down their arms and recognized Israel as legitimate in grounds from which to withdraw.


As the withdrawal gets closer, mobilization against Sharon's plan is starting to mirror the mobilization against Olso. Once again, Israel's supporters are being asked to speak out against not only Israel's enemies, but its government. I for one will not be joining in this process.


The claim being made by the rationalist opponents to the Sharon Plan (I'll put to the side the arguments of those who consider the ruins of ancient Phillista holy), is that a retreat anywhere is the first step to a retreat everywhere. Hamas and the other existential enemies of Israel will only be further encouraged to press to further concessions. Today, Gush Katif, tommorrow Gush Etzion, the day after that Jerusalem.


This position however a fundamental flaw - the withdrawal from Gaza is not a concession. It is not a concession because the Gaza is not an asset, but an albatross. (Whether Gaza ever becomes an asset to the Palestinians is up to them - but a first step would probably be to keep Hamas off the local school board). It is further not a concession because it is not being made in response to any Palestinian action - it is not a concession to terror OR to cracking down on terror.


The second fundamental flaw is that time is on Israel's side. With respect to demographics it most certainly not. I have never quite understood why the same hawks that are so attuned to the threat of conceding a Palestinian "Right of Return" are so oblivious to this problem. In fact, it is only on the extreme of hawkish spectrum that the problem is even addressed. The current favorite on the hard right, replacing the euphemistic and morally repugnant "voluntary transfer" is Benni Elon's "virtual transfer" in which the Palestinians remain in the West Bank, under Israeli sovreignity with Jordanian citizenship. Clearly, dealing with reality is not exactly at the top of the Herutist agenda.


In contrast, Sharon plows forward, with the stones from both left and right clanging off his bulldozer. Ben Gurion would be proud.

ISRAEL AND THE HOLOCAUST, 60 YEARS LATER

I confess that I’ve always instinctively recoiled from linkage of the Holocaust and Israel. As a moderately affiliated American Jew growing up in the period between the Six Day War and the “continuity crisis”/religious revival of the 1990s, I was educated with the Holocaust and Israel as the twin pillars of Jewish identity. I saw them as competing poles, joyful and mournful, and threw my lot in the with the hope and forward-looking vitality of Zionism.

As I grew older, I found my skepticism warranted. Many of the most common narratives that link the Holocaust and Israel are deeply flawed. For example, the often stated, but rarely examined proposition that the Holocaust made the birth of Israel possible. In this view, the world, shocked and shamed by the Holocaust, showed mercy on the Jews by voting in the United Nations to create a Jewish state. This narrative is deeply flawed in two ways. First, is the assumption that world pity and a UN vote were sufficient to establish Israel. It is consistent with a view of Jews on the sidelines of history, rather than the active agents of their own fate. In doing so, proponents of the "world gift" thesis ignore the heroic efforts and remarkable achievements of the Zionists in building a community and modern infrastructure in mere decades. The now-cliche litany of the heroic deeds of the halutzim (pioneers): reviving long-fallow land in the Galilee, raising Tel Aviv from sand dunes into an metropolis and causing the Negev to "bloom" were very real achievements long before they appeared on Federation pamphlets. Similarly, the price the yishuv (pre-independence Palestinian Jewish community) was willing to pay in precious lives to make the Jewish State a reality can not be overlooked.

Furthermore, the "post-Holocaust world-pity" creation myth writes Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews, who came to Israel fleeing Arab and Muslim persecution, entirely out of the story. Israel is reduced to being a European story. The world (in other words, Europe) sinned against the Jews in the Holocaust and atoned through the creation of Israel. To the extent that the narrative of Israel and the Holocaust is one of European atonement is it woefully insufficient. The votes of various European governments, and grudging passage to survivors is far from atonement for Europe’s sins. Europe can not simply pretend to have granted a Jewish state as an act of mercy, and move past the destruction of a third of the Jewish people. Yet the ongoing refusal of Europeans to truly confront the reality of the Holocaust makes the idea of Israel as European atonement too attractive to pass on.

It is the same desire in Europe to avoid a full moral reckoning with the Holocaust that leads to an even more pernicious linkage between the Holocaust and Israel, that of labeling Israeli actions against Palestinians as “Nazi.” This claim, viewed rationally, is patently absurd. The actions of Israel that are cited in the standard indictment against it range from those taken in scrupulous self-defense (such as targeted assassinations of militant leaders and the construction of the border fence) to the ugly, but necessary by-products of counter-terrorism (such as armed checkpoints and curfews) to the discriminatory and morally debatable (e.g. land confiscations). None of these actions, however, approach the mildest form of genocide, let alone the standard against which all genocides are measured.

It is simply not possible to lob "Nazi" allegations against Israel while taking what happened at Auschwitz seriously. (Ponder for a moment that in comparison, the tragedy of the Spanish Expulsion is a reprieve, that the reality of Auschwitz for Jews is to look backward, and to wish longingly that 1942 was 1492 once more. That is the full scope of evil and loss). Were Israel to indulge the wildest fantasy of the most fanatical settler and drive every Palestinian over the Jordan River it would be but a puddle of moral depracity to the ocean of Auschwitz, Yet here we are 60 years after the liberation of the camps, and the most frequently cited example of those horrors is the Jewish state's flawed, but fundamentally moral and restrained self-defense.

The reason for this is the mutation of anti-Semitism to a more politically and socially correct form of anti-Zionism. When it comes to Europe, Jews can never win. In the era of European nationalism, the nation-less Jews were made a pariah, blamed for all the sins of cosmopolitan internationalism. Now, in a new era of European post-nationalism, the Jews, it is the Jewish nation that is made a pariah, scapegoat for all the sins of nationalism.

There is of course, more at play than simply the residual stirring of Europe's oldest curse. By far the most virulent source of anti-Semetism in Europe today comes from its Muslim immigrant communities. In a particularly perverse irony, Europe exported the virus of modern anti-Semetism to the Islamic world (a form of Jew-hatred quite distinct from traditional attitudes towards Jews in Islamic society)
in the fascistic strains of pan-Arabism and Islamism, only to re-import it in the form of immigrants holding those views. If anything, immigration to Europe has exacerbated the problem, as European Muslims alienated from European society have increasingly been supceptible to Islamism's scapegoating of "Jews and Zionists" as the source of all problems.

The virulent anti-Semetism cloaked as anti-Zionism of the European far left and Islamists has been increasingly abetted by "reasonable" liberals. The liberals take on faith that there must be something to the passionate accusations lobbed as Israel. Thus, they will admit that perhaps Israel has a right to exist, but will denounce it as the main obstacle to peace and progress in the Middle East. They will deplore suicide bombings but "understand" the "desperation" that is its cause.

Thus the death of Rachel Corrie becomes a critically acclaimed play in the West End, and the British academy bans only Israeli academics from its conferences. (And this is in all places, relatively philo-Semetic Britain). Yet, as actual genoice occurs in Darfur, Europe in silent. As human rights campaigners in Iran and China are silenced there is no response from Europe except for calls for increased trade with the current regimes.

Never forget. And yet Europe is constantly forgetting the Holocaust. Unfortunately for Israel, Europe's moral amnesia is not just a mere inconvenience. Europe is Israel's most important neighbor - its number one trading partner, its cultural neighborhood (where it competes in everything from basketball to pop music). Permitting the current anti-Zionist wave to rise will result in serious consequences.

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that Europe not be permitted to forget. That it is only appropriate that the demonization of the Jewish state, the efforts to marginalize citizens of the Jewish state, and the appeasement of the enemies of the Jewish state be rightly compared to Europe's past record of demonizing Jews, marginalizing Jews, appeasing the Nazis and ultimately aiding and abetting the Nazi genocide. Sixty years after the destruction of a third of the Jewish people happened on European soil, Europe owes the Jews this much - to take the existential threat to Israel seriously, and to never again stand idly by while Jews perish.

ON THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

I was supposed to have participated in this pro-Israel blogburst commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. However, the life of a NY lawyer is not always conducive to blogging - in face its rarely conducive to blogging. I will post the Pinetification I had planned to write for the occassion as soon as it is finished.

THE PEJORATIVE LIKUDNIK

There's an interesting discussion going on at the Washington Monthly blog on this. Here's my take on the issue.

Two different debates are getting conflated here. First, whether or not the increasing use of the term "Likudnik" in American political discourse is fueled by anti-Semitism and second, a larger question about at what point does legitimate critcism of Israeli policies cross the line into anti-Semitism.

Getting back to the original question, it is important to ask what "Likudnik" is supposed to connote in the American context. I'm pretty confident that most of the people who throw the term around are unfamiliar with the writings of Vladimir Jabotinsky.

Here are the various ways Likudnik is employed.

1) To denote supporters of the Sharon government or the Likud party against the Israeli Left. Example: American Likudniks have no idea who to support in Sharon’s ongoing struggle with members of his own party over his Gaza plan.

2) To denote supporters of a certain ideological stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue. Example: Likudniks believe that the most appropriate response to Palestinian terror is to expand the growth of settlements deep in the West Bank.

Neither of these two uses is any more problematic than say calling the Israel Policy Forum "Laborites." The problem comes from attempting to transfer the term to American policies

3) To denote supporters of an American foreign policy that supports or does not object to “Likudnik” approaches to the Israeli security policy. Example: American Likudniks do not believe our government should apply any pressure on Israel to crack down on West Bank settlement expansion.

(It should be noted, that when used employed as a pejorative by leftists and liberals, it often seems to be applied to anyone who supports American backing of various Israeli policies(e.g. the border wall and targeted strikes on terrorists) that are backed by most Israelis, including those that reject the Likud’s long-term approach to the Palestinian issue and support a negotiated two-state solution.

However, the way the term seems to be employed on an increasing basis is as way of describing the Bush administration's foreign policy in the Middle East.

4) To denote supporters of a “Likudnik” approach to American foreign policy. Example: The Likudniks real reason for going to war in Iraq was a perceived need after 9/11 that America needed to send a dramatic message to the Arab-Islamic world in order to restore its lost deterrence.

This is the more sophisticated use of the term along these lines, the analysis being that the "Likudniks" have embraced the various ideological positions of Israeli Likudniks (a belief that the Arab-Islamic world responds best to shows of force and sees conciliation as weakness, and the need for regime change as a prerequisite for lasting peace in the region) and (mis)applied them to American foreign policy. This use of Likudnik in this fashion, while not anti-Semitic in itself, stretches it to the breaking point, and too easily morphs into the more pernicious form. It frankly unnecessary to look to Israeli ideology as the genesis of Rumsfeld and Cheaney's hawkish views, as there is a long home-grown tradition (what Walter Russell Mead calls Jacksonian) that explains their worldview much more directly.

This brings us, to the final way the term is employed, and that is:

5) To denote Jewish supporters of American hawkish policy in the Middle East whose views are driven not by what they believe is best for America, but rather based on their support for Israel. Example. The Bush administration’s foreign policy was hijacked by a group of Likudniks to further their narrow agenda.

The implication is plain; that these “Likudniks” have dual loyalties, and are willing to subvert the interest of America to the benefit of Israel. When used in this fashion, “Likudnik” most definitely being used as a coded form of anti-Semitism.

To the extent, Likudnik is being used to attack concrete ideas or policies; it most likely not being used in anti-Semitic fashion, but when it is thrown about without any context as a pejorative to attack individuals, odds are anti-Semitism is at the core of that attack.

THE DARK CLOUD OF ABU AMAR HAS PASSED


For some reason when I think of Arafat's death, I get the image of Saruman at the end of Lord of the Rings, a malevolent cloud rising into the air, hovering for a moment and then finally dispersed with a swift gust of wind from the west. Arafat will be in death as in life, more a symbol than a man. A symbol of the Arab rejection of Jewish equality and dignity and its manifestation in the state of Israel,, of the toxic romanticism of western progressives, and of the sacrifice of the very real needs of his own people and lives of countless innocent Jews on the altar of Arab and Islamic honor. With his passing, there is hope for if not peace, than tangible progress towards it.

ISRAEL AND GAZA: DEMOCRATIC DYSFUNCTION VS. TYRANNIC DYSFUNCTION


The degree of consensus in Israel regarding the Palestinian Question is for that fractious nation remarkable. With the fantasies of Greater Israel and Olso both exposed, there is solid support for a policy of unilateral separation. This consensus extends beyond mere principles to support of concrete proposals, such as the building of the West Bank fence and the evacuation of the Gaza settlements. And yet, despite this consensus, the progress of the Sharon Government towards these goals has been agonizingly slow. The reason for this is that with the exception of the Shinui party, no political force is wholeheartedly behind this agenda. Yossi Beilin and Meretz snipe at the project from the unreconstructed left, while the settlers and their allies who recently departed the government snipe at it from the unreconstructed right. The Haredim as they always do simply want to milk the budget for every last drop to preserve their radical project of subsidizing a mass movement of schnorr-pilgrims. And the two formerly major parties of Labor and Likud, who if they were at responsive to the electorate would have formed a unity government months ago are still fractured by their splits between their pragmatic and ideological wings. This is very much the dysfunction of a thriving democracy - with interest groups and factions putting their parochial interests in the way of national interests for as long as they are able. In the end however, the odd couple of Sharon and Peres, with their unique combination of pragmatism and idealism will most likely prevail and Israel can finally begin implementing a policy that will significantly ameliorate the conflict.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, their is no similar hope for an end to their political dysfunction. The chaos in Gaza, while blamed internationally on a diabolical scheme by Sharon, is the direct result of Arafat's misrule. Far more concerned with preventing the rise of a rival to his power than providing basic security for his people, Arafat's divide-and-conquer approach has left competing gangs masquerading as security forces. The chaos keeps international attention on the conflict, and keeps would-be rivals such as Mohammed Dahlan from emerging with a sufficient power base to oust Arafat, but makes the possibility of basic law and order emerging in the Strip after the Israeli withdrawal a herculean task. This is result of tyrannical dysfunction, which is why a decade after Oslo the possibility of a functional Palestinian State is even less likely then before "Peave" arrived.

GAZA: A TRAGEDY, NOT A MASSACRE


Once again an Israeli offensive into a densely-packed refugee camp has led to howls of world outrage. Even the U.S., battered by the images of Abu Ghraib, partially joined in, abstaining in one more biased U.N. resolution and scolding the latest IDF action as "worsening the Palestinian humanitarian situation without improving Israeli security." That criticism is tame compared to the strident Arab and European cries of massacre and genocide. Lost amidst the rhapsodic Israel-bashing in the reason why the IDF was sent into Rafah in the first place - the vast matrix of tunnels used to smuggle increasingly more deadly arms into Gaza from Egypt. Those that would respond in muted shock to Palestinian missles shooting down an Israeli civilian airliner (and that is where such missles would be aimed) are the same that react with horror at Israel's efforts to prevent such an intentional massacre.


The picture on the front of all the world's papers today is that of a grieving father holding his dead child in his arms - it is of course powerful to move all but the most inhuman viewer. But what the picture does not show is anything close to the context leading up to the child's death - the countless deliberate massacres of Israeli children by Palestinian terrorists, the deliberate Palestinian tactic of using their own civilians as human shields, the decision to pepper the demonstration with just enough armed men to draw Israeli fire, with the hope of producing an image just like the picture, the creation of arms-smuggling tunnels using civilian homes as camaflouge, and of course the ongoing Egyptian violation of its signed peace accord with Israel, by failing to police its border with Gaza.


It is almost mind-numbing to have to counter the Palestinian propaganda that results from an event like this. The charges of course, are not that Israel was reckless, but that it genocidal. What happened in Rafah was a tragedy, not a massacre. But unlike Palestinian society, those Israelis that are in anyway responsible for Palestinian civilian deaths will be reprimanded - and not hailed as heros. This is fundamental difference between a moral lapse in a moral society and the acts of the an immoral society. The inability to tell the difference a critical moral failing that leads to much of the moral perversion that passes for enlightened world opinion.


If Israel is to be criticized for any part of the Rafah operation, it is the handling of the destruction of the homes covering the tunnels. This is a problem that Israel has known about for a long time, and a solution that could have accomodated those residents could have been found, had the offensive not been launched as much in anger, albeit understandable, in the wake of the butchering of Israeli soliders and defilement of their corpses. Even worse are th current noises from Sharon that he plans to raze the settlements upon exit, rather than arrange for them to help ease the Palestinian housing crunch. Smallness should not be cofused with firmness in the struggle against terror.


Parallels are being aptly drawn to the abortive 1996 "Grapes of Wrath" offensive in Lebanon against Hezbullah, launched by Peres as much as anything to distract from Hamas's concurrent terror offensive. That operation ended in disaster when an errant strike destroyed a packed building of civilians. So, too, does the Rafah offensive appear to be very much part of a political cover ploy by Sharon. But there is another parallel to be drawn with Lebanon, and that is the Barak-led unilateral withdrawal, a morally and strategically sound move that was misread by radical Arabs instead as weakness. Israel (and the Palestinians for that matter) can ill-afford for a Gaza withdrawal to result in a similar strengthening of radical Palestinians. The Rafah offensive, therefore, can not be the last crack-down in Gaza before Israel exits. It is essential, however, that the next one do a better job at limiting the collateral loss of civillian life.

LIKUDNIKS VOTE FOR PURITY, IRRELEVANCE


In the wake of the succesful Bush-Sharon summit meeting and the endorsement of Bibi and the other major national figures in Likud, the defeat of the plan in the recent referendum appears to be a stunning setback for the prime minister and his plan. But, as Shinui leader Tommy Lapid noted, the views of slightly more than 25% of one party doesn't exactly mean very much in light of the decisive majority of the Israeli public in favor of the plan. Looking closer, the vote says far more about the increasing irrelevance of the Likud party, and the inability of the Israeli right's grass-roots to come to grips with post-Oslo reality. In this regard, the Likudniks, with their undimmed commitment to Greater Israel and dogged refusal to give concessions to terror mirror the Israeli Left's unreconstructed Peace Processors.


The inexorable logic of unilateral withdraw, will continue to push the Sharon Plan forward, with or without Sharon. Already, the ever-hopeful Shimon Peres is calling for elections, seeing an opportunity for Labor to once more recover the pragmatic Israeli center. With Yossi Beillin now pitching Oslo knock-offs with the party formerly known as Meretz, he has a shot, but the party with the most to gain from Likud's sucidical instincts is Lapid's Shinui, who now have the ideal position on the left-wing of Sharon's coalition. All of this is speculation, however, as Sharon is far too cagy to stumble again. He will push forward, and drag the majority of his power behind him, kicking and screaming. And those that don't want to come can along can join the Herut branch of the National Union which shares the politics and name of Likud's predecessor - uncompromisiing and irrelevant.

GOOD NEWS FROM GAZA


This past week was a disaster for the State Department, other proponents of Israeli appeasement of Palestinian terror, the settler movement and Hamas. Not surprising given the prior list, it was one of the most hopeful weeks for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a long time. First and most importantly, the Bush administration wrested control of Israeli-Palestinian policy from the unreconstructed Oslo-ites in the State Department and set itself firmly behind a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank. Rather than attempt to link such actions to the diplomatic process, Bush instead focused on ensuring that such unilateral withdrawal not be limited to Gaza, but instead be part of a more comprehensive initiative to break the current post-Oslo stalemate.


Furthermore, Bush abandoned the State Departments destructive practice of "neutrality" on issues such as the 1967 borders and the re-settlement of Palestinian refugees and backed the Israeli red lines on such issues publicly. Whatever advantages such positions had had in giving the U.S. the appearence of being an "honest broker" in Palestinians eyes had more been offset by the message it sent Palestinian maximalists - that these issues were truly on the table, and could be potentially imposed upon Israel through terror or international fiat. There is no better way to demonstrate the bankruptcy of the post-Camp David intifada to the Palestinian mainstream than to have it result in less and not more territory in the West Bank being put on the table for a Palestinian state.


The downside to a withdrawal from Gaza has been the specter of a Hamas takeover. But here Sharon is going out of his way to avoid the mistakes made by Barak in the unilateral withdraw from South Lebanon. And therefore, Israel has struck hard at Hamas, decapitating the terror organization twice in the past two months.
These attacks have shown that the true limiting factor in Palestinian suicide attacks is operational capacity, not motivation. No doubt Hamas will succeed in commiting mass-murder again before too long, but its success rate has plummetted since Israel took off the gloves its counter-offensive against the group. A crippled Hamas, whose leader can no longer even be proclaimed in public, is no longer the front-runner to take over Gaza in the wake of an Israeli withdrawal - and that in and of itself is cause for hope. Whether or not there is any more good news from Gaza after the Israelis leave depends upon the willingness of the European Union, the State Department and other Arafat-abettors to learn from their mistakes - and provide the necessary strings to aid money winds up in houses rather than bombs this time.

SHEIK YASSIN FINALLY SENT TO HELL


After years of holding back, out of fear of backlash, out of the misguided sympathy that exists in a world that focuses more on physical disability than ethical disability, Israel finally sent Sheik Yassin to the special hell reserved for those who most profane G-d's name by cloaking mass murder in religious garb. World leaders, who managed nary a peep of protest to the hundreds of innocent Israelis butchered upon the orders and blessings of Yassin, have already protested the act, condemning Israel for killing "a man in a wheelchair" as if Yassin was nothing more than a kindly old Palestinian grandfather. But that fact of his paralysis does not absolve him of the evil perpetuated in his name, any more than a failed strike on bin Laden that left him bereft of his limbs bus still alive would somehow require our government to abandon its pursuit of that mass murderer. This was not a "extra-judicial" killing, this was not a "part of the cycle of violence" - it was justice, a legitimate act of self-defense by a people against a genoicidal leader of a genocidal enemy. Unfortunately, there will be other evil sheiks that will try to take Yassin's place and brainwash young men and women into suicidal mass-murderers, but none with the same level of authority. Now, as Israel prepares to withdraw from Gaza, is the time to continue to deliver crippling blows to Hamas, to give at least the glimmer of hope of a Gaza that someday soon is no longer the Gaza of Sheik Yassin - hell on earth.

ISRAEL CHANGES ITS MIND ON THE FENCE FARCE


Israel has decided not to present oral arguments at the International Comedy of Justice's hearings on Israel's border fence. Instead Israel plans to rely solely on a written brief in which it rejects ICJ jurisdiction over the dispute. While I have sympathy for the decision to not go along with the kabuki theater that is passing itself off as a legal proceeding, Israel may have been better off utilizing the forum as a opportunity to state its case, to steal the thunder of its accusers with a powerful display of the carnage that has driven Israel to build the fence. Either way, the real loser in this case is the movement to build real international legal institutions, which continues to get entangled with the Arab-Islamic anti-Semetism.

SHALOM NETZARIM


Ariel Sharon has begun a political earthquake in Israel by initiating a plan to uproot the Gaza settlements beginning this coming summer as part of overall strategy of unilateral separation.


Sharon has been moving slowly but steadily towards such a plan over the past year. First, by embracing the security fence (a policy that emerged as result of a grassroots centrist movement and over the objection of both left-wing and right-wing elites) Sharon enacted policies that for the first time matched his rhetorical abandonment of Greater Israel by beginning to carve a de facto partition of the West Bank. Second, in his December Herzliyah speech (and more explicitly in the trial baloons of the increasingly more relevant Deputy PM Ehud Olmert), Sharon clearly expressed the logic behind a unilateral withdrawal and his willingness to embrace it as an alternative to a negotiated solution.


Opposition to the Sharon Plan for Gaza has come from three very different directions. The first stream of opposition comes from the uber-doves, led by Yossi Beillin, who oppose unilateral measures based on their near- messianic faith in the ability of a negotiated settlement to transform the Palestinian Authority into a viable, peaceful neighbor. The second stream of opposition comes naturally from the Settler Movement (not to be conflated with the average Yossi who lives in the Jerusalem suburbs), who oppose any withdrawals, negotiated or not based on their near-messianic faith that G-d intended the Jewish people to return to the ancient land where our...enemies the Phillistines used to live (At least the fanatics in Hebron have a legitimate historical tie to the place). The third stream of opposition (and the only based on actual logic) comes from those such as Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom who oppose unilateral withdrawal because it will be seen by the Palestinians as a victory for terror over negotiation and compromise. (See Lebanon). The third group supports continuing a war of attrition until the a Palestinian leadership emerges that is serious about peace.


Despite the very real fears of a short-term increase of Palestinian radicalism (which can be blunted depending upon the way the withdrawal is handled), the most cogent criticism of the Sharon plan is why he waited so long. Sharon has gained very little by proposing such a plan now, rather than a year ago. In the interim, the shock of the reoccupation of the West Bank for the Palestinians has wore off, Sharon's approval rating have eroded in the absence of decisive moves to address the problem, and he has become embroiled in a murky corruption scandal.

Still, Sharon's pragmatic instincts have moved him inevitably towards unilateral partition as the only solution to the Palestinain problem. Despite his strong preference for negotiation, expect Shimon Peres's instincts to lead him there as well, and for a unity government to this summer finally undo one of the biggest blunders of Israeli policy in the past 30 years - the Gaza settlements.

THE UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON: DELAYED GRATIFICATION


The Jerusalem Post's Arieh O'Sullivan (not be confused with other great Irish-Israeli journalists such as Yitzie Flanagan, Moishe Shaughnessy and Dorit O'Connor) has an interesting anlaysis of the recent Israel-Hezbollah prisoner exchange, in which he cites Professor Eyal Zisser of the Dayan Center's position that the Hezbollah is increasingly acting from a position of weakness.

"While the prisoner deal will be a feather in his cap, in the end Hizbullah has a problem," he said. "It actually pulls the rug out from under them and the reason for the organization's existence. Until now, he could say he exists because of the Lebanese prisoners. What is Nasrallah going to say now to those who say the time has come to put an end to it all?"

Zisser said that there is a rising number of Lebanese who are questioning Hizbullah's necessity. Newspaper editorials are saying that there are other, more important matters than the Shaba farms, like the economy.
Furthermore, the flowering of southern Lebanon has also restrained Hizbullah from heating up the border, where even the slightest action draws the IDF's wrath

If Zisser is correct, Israel may finally reap the full benefits of Barak's decision to unilaterally withdrawal from South Lebanon. Up until this point, the decision has had mixed results. The withdrawal sucessfully reduced Israel's casulties along the northern border, and dramatically reduced Syria's leverage in any negotiations involving the Golan. On the other hand, the impact of the withdrawal on the Palestinian front has been calamitous, as it led to a mistaken Palestinian view that the "Hezbollah" approach could have equal success in the West Bank and Gaza, obtaining an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders without the Palestinians having to make the concessions required by the Camp David proposals.


The lessons of Lebanon are important to consider in the light of steady slide of Israeli policy towards a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Mostly, as this article by Dennis Ross notes, because there are no real alternatives.) There is clearly a serious short-term risk that such a withdrawal will be misinterpreted as a reward for Palestinian terror. However, in the longer term, separation may weaken the terrorist by udnercutting their domestic and international legitimacy.


The real lesson from Lebanon might be that how the withdrawal is executed is critical. The circumstances surrounding the IDF's withdrawal gave it the appearence (if not the reality) of a panicked retreat. In contrast, if Israel is able to fully construct a border fence on its terms, methodically remove the isolated settlements, and maintain the capacity to strike back after any terror attacks, it might be able to execute the withdrawal in a way that minimizes the ability of Palestinian militants to claim victory. If that is the case, the withdrawal creates the context for Palestinian pragmatists to step forward to take advantage of the opportunities for peace that separation brings.

OSLO-ITIS: WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?


If you want to encapsulate the utter failure of the Israeli Left to learn anything from the disaster of Oslo in one quote, this statement reported in Ha'aretz would be it.

As one official involved in the agreements put it, "As far as I'm concerned, it can be a dictatorship like it is
in Egypt, but if they can't provide security, there will be no accord."

The myopia of the Israeli Left is staggering. How exactly, is a Palestinian "dictatorship like Egypt" supposed to provide peace, when its can only remain in power by displacing the public's frustration with internal tyranny onto an external villain? But the Israeli Left's love of the Arab strongman - which caused it to overlook Oslo's fatal flaw - is still intact despite the misery it caused both Israelis and Palestinians in the past decade. And until they shake it, they are just as dangerous to the long-term hopes of peace as the most radical settler in his hilltop trailer.

PERMANENT OSLO-ITIS


There is plenty of irrationality to spare in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, yet it is one more twist of irony that the most rational actors, such as Arafat and the settlers are deemed "irrational," while the die-hard Peace Processors are considered the beacon of rationality. Arafat's actions may be fully contradictory to the hope of a negotiated "two-state" solution, but they have been quite consistent with his core goals - of staying as the dominant Palestinian power broker, and keeping the conflict sufficiently roiling until the Israelis make unilateral concessions or trigger an international intervention by over-reacting. Similarly, for those like MK Benny Elon and the settlers he represents that advocate a Bantustan or "voluntary" transfer "solution" - the continued expansion of settlements deep within the West Bank and Gaza is a fully rational means towards such ends.

For truly astonishing irrational behavior, however, there is the Israeli Left - led by the patron saint of Oslo, Dr. Yossi Beilin. The latest gambit of Beilin, Avraham Burg and others has been to negotiate a proposed settlement with the Palestinians in which Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount would be exchanged in return for a Palestinian concession of their insistence that all the descendants of the 1948 refugees (and anyone else the Palestinians wish to count as a "refugee") be settled within pre-1967 Israel.

The faith of the Israeli Left in the power of Israeli concessions to Fatah-led Palestinians is unshakable. While it rational to support a hypothesis in the absence of any evidence, it is fundamentally irrational to do so after an experiment has clearly disproved the theory. Yet, the Peace Processors press on, as if the Oslo experiment was never performed. This insanity is magnified in light of yet another resignation of a would-be Palestinian PM. Putting aside the unwillingness of Fatah to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish State and abide by any agreements it makes with Israel, Fatah can not even reach an internal consensus on the desirability of creating a functioning Palestinian government, much less create one by eliminating by eliminating the militias.

The Israeli Left however steadfastly refuses to treat the internal politics of the Palestinians as anything more than a black box. To do so would require them to admit the disastrous decision that led to the Oslo Debacle - the decision to rehabilitate Arafat and Fatah rather than strengthen local leaders, the decision to prioritize the process over Palestinian compliance, and most importantly the decision to rely upon Arafat to impose "Peace" from the top down, rather than developing Palestinian political and economic institutions that would provide the environment where grass-roots support for peace could emerge.

The Road Map might have been too little, too late with regard to the failings of Oslo - but at least it addressed the core problems. The Peace Processors, however, are intent to keep putting their finger back in socket - again and again and again. While the Palestinians are stuck with the rational architect of their misery, the Israelis were vote the irrational architects of their misery out of power.

ALL OR NOTHING ON THE FENCE

So Sharon has finally made up his mind - Ariel (and the far less publicized, but far more problematic Kedumim) are going to be on the Israeli side of the fence. This decision pretty much destroys the remaining shred of credibility to the fiction that the fence route is not the preliminary determination of Israel's permanent borders with a Palestinian (or Palestinian-Jordanian) state. Ariel, the largest settlement outside of the Jeruasalem suburbs was slated to remain part of Israel under any of the realistic final status proposals. To require Israel to cede it at this point would be a perverse reward for Palestinian terror and rejectionism. That, however, was precisely what the State Department, with its plan to link the loan guarentees to the route of the fence was seeking.

Its not the State Department's stated goal in wielding the fiscal threat - preventing the fence from carving out boundaries that prevent a contiguous, viable Palestinian entity - that's the problem. It is the blatant falsehood that any annexation of the West Bank is tantamount to such a result. It is the delusion that all settlements are equal - that Ariel is somehow the same as the hilltop settlements that lie on the roads betwen Nablus and Ramallah, or in the heart of Hebron. And so with their fetishization of the Green Line, the Peace Processors of Foggy Bottom fall into the same All or Nothing mentality of the most radical settlers.
There will be no negotiated solution any time in the near future. The best anyone who hopes for a long-term peace can do is to support a unilateral seperation that makes the most sense. If the Peace Processors feel a need to pressure Israel, they should apply pressure for the dismantling of Netzarim and Elon Moreh.

On a positive note, the Sharon government has altered the route of the fence near Jerusalem so as not to bisect Al Quds university. The decision to correct the bone-headed decision came as a result of pressure applied by non-violent protests by Al Quds students and faculty. Non-violent protest by Palestinians...a truly novel idea.

THE NOT-SO-SHOCKING FAILURE OF THE ROAD MAP


The massacre in the Cafe Hillel coffeeshop was simply the punctuation mark to the dismal failure of the "Road Map," process, begun with cautious optimism just months ago. The half-way reform of the PA led to a non-existent disarmament of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aksa, a therefore an inevitable new round of terrorism. The Road Map quickly degenerated into Oslo Redux, with Israel being pressured to make unilateral concessions in order to prop up a Palestinian partner who might someday be able to meet their obligations. In this case the Israeli withdrawals and limited prisoner releases served only to delay the inevitable failure of Abbas.


The "Road Map" initiative was laudable in that it addressed the fundamental flaw in the Oslo process - the lack of a functional Palestinian partner committed to the process. However, the cold, hard truth is that no matter how much Israel, the U.S. or the rest of the world wishes for there to be such a functional partner, one can not emerge from the shambles of post-Oslo Palestinian society, a society that far more radical and dysfunctional than before the disaster of Oslo.


In the end the only real hope for a lasting peace comes from a unilateral separation by Israel, and de-Palestinization of the process. The seperation wall should be built ASAP - roughly along the lines of the Camp David offer, and the settlements beyond the wall dismantled. To wait for a negotiated agreement to begin the needed process of disentangling the populations is a foolhardy stalling tactic that will only prolong the conflict.


In the meantime, with respect to the terror organizations, Israel should continue to do what it should have done long ago - give Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aksa no respite. The targeting killings of terrorist leaders, "political" and otherwise are the most moral response to terror - they are the antithesis of the immorality of the attacks on women, children, shoppers and diners. Better Sheik Yassin make his long overdue appointment in hell than for a Palestinian child to go hungry in response to a fruitless effort to pressure the heartless Arafat and his cronies. There is nothing else Israel can do until a responsible Arab government takes over the responsibility for eliminating Palestinian terror.


Success in the long run requires moving past the fixation on a Palestinian state. The right of self-determination of the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza would be better addressed by returning them to rule by Egypt or Jordan, which for all their problems, are far more functional than any Palestinian government that could possibly emerge in the next two to three years. While Palestinian self-rule is a nice idea, it is secondary to the more important task of ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Arabs.


Unless the next "map", "plan", or "guide" thinks along these fresh lines, and does not try to build once more upon the rubble of Oslo, it will go the way of the roap-map - quickly into the recycling bin of diplomatic failure.

Checking in with the Road Map at the First Rest Stop

As we're now one month into the much balleyhooed hudna, it's a good time to quickly assess the current progress in latest Israel-Palestinian peace initiative.


First, the hudna has held, as the Palestinian terror groups have downshifted into a low-grade attacks mainly on the settlements. This of course had led to the Israeli Right screaming about a lack of Palestinian compliance, to no avail. Everyone knew that what Israel was buying in the cease-fire deal was a respite from large-scale attacks in Israel proper. It has been these attacks that have wrecked a devastating toll both in terms of innocent lives, but also wrecking Israel's economy. All indications show that Hamas, Islamic Jihad & Fatah intend to keep to the hudna for the next couple of months. However, there is still the real possibility of a splinter group torpeding everything with one successful attack.


Second, Abbas has done absolutely nothing to crack down on the terror groups. This of course, is thoroughly unsurprising, given that he would have to win his civil war with Arafat before he could even contemplate such a move. So far, Abbas has been buoyed by the events of the past month. He clearly intends to postpone the inevitable showdown with Arafat for as long as possible, hoping to gather momentum from an improving Palestinian economy no longer choked by Israeli checkpoints.


Third, Sharon is holding firm, despite the increasing pressure on him for unilateral compliance. The easiest concessions, withdrawing to pre-March 2002 positions, he is making. On the settlement issue, he is dragging his feet, rather than pursuing a vigorous outpost removal policy. The pressure is coming to bear hardest however on the release of Paletinian terrorists in Israeli jails. This concession is of course first on the list of the terror organizations, and accordingly a top priority for Abbas & Dahlan who desperate to preserve the hudna. Israeli public opinion, which would happily give away every outpost tommorrow (and for many the actual settlements themselves) rightly do not want to the government to release murderers who will undoubtedly murder again.


Finally, there is the odd spectacle of the Sharon government and the security fence. On the one hand, Sharon correctly stood firm against the diplomatic offensive against the fence by the Europeans and their American wannabes in the State Department. On the other hand, he isn't exactly cracking the whip to get it built. Until it is, however, the temptation for the Palestinian terror groups to once more take the offensive will be too great; and the costs of not building the fence, far too high.

THE ROADMAP: ONE REST STOP AT A TIME

It is far too early to tell whether the recent flurry of diplomatic activity in the Israeli-Arab conflict will result in anything more than an ephemeral breakthrough, despite the metaphorical genius of the Roadmap. The reason for this has little to do with doubts about the current U.S. administration's committment to its initiative, or with Sharon's remarkable gifts for misdirection. At a more fundamental level, the Roadmap is not dead on arrival, ala previous post-Oslo plans (Mitchell, Tenet) because critical steps towards Palestinian reform have happened. The potential for the Roadmap to fizze out like its predecessors remains because that reform was only half-complete. A fully empowered trio of Fayyad controlling the purse strings, Dahlan the security forces and Abbas the politics of the PA is the elusive Palestinain partner Israel has been searching for since the Oslo disaster. This trio, however, at present can not even wrest authority of the PA away from Arafat, let alone eliminate the rejectionist opposition of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the militant wing of Fatah.

This is why it comes as no surprise that Abbas is spearheading the drive for a global cease-fire. Abbas can not match Hamas and Arafat's appeal to the Palestinian's self-destructive passion for ideological purity. He can only build his constituency by delivering concrete, material improvements in the day-to-day conditions of Palestinian life. For this to happen, Abbas needs an Israeli withdrawl. And for that to happen, he needs Hamas to agree to a hudna, because until Dahlan is able to wrest control of the PA's security forces completely from the grasp of Arafat, Abbas lacks the capability of cracking down on Hamas in the wake of a terror attack. This is reason why Israel will swallow the bitter pill of one more Palestinian "unity" pact - with the implicit understanding that such a move will be permitted in Abbas' grace period, but not if it becomes a cornerstone of Abbas' policy.

If Abbas is sucessful at achieving a time-out, Israel will carry out the relatively painless steps required of it in the first phase of the road map. Sharon is firmly ensconsed in the center of Israeli opinion - and the election of Peres as interim Labor leader assures him of the cushion of a unity government in the event of the inevitable exodus of his hard-line coalition partners. Sharon would be wise to use the cease-fire in another way, to complete as much of the West Bank fence as possible. Because whether or not Abbas is able to outmaneuver Arafat in the next coming months, the genocidal mullahs of Hamas will decide to launch another wave of terror attacks. That problem, however, doesn't be addressed until the next rest stop on the Roadmap. After all, even if we don't have peace, we do have a metaphor.

THE 2003 ISRAELI ELECTION: THE MORNING AFTER

Here are my thoughts on two major questions rased by yesterday's major re-drawing of the Israeli political map.

1) Is this the end of Labor as we know it?

Yes. The party notched an all-time low of 19 seats. To put this disaster in the proper perspective, in the last single-ballot election, 1992, Labor notched 44 mandates. That's a loss of over a fifth of the electorate. Labor had long since jettisoned anything resembling a discernible domestic policy. It re-emerged in the 1980s as a coaltion of moderate doves - with the dovish and moderates wings in equipoise. However, the party abandoned the doves Oslo gamble, and in the process became the party of Oslo. Labor had one final chance to redefine itself in the wake of Barak's landslide loss to Sharon in the 2001 prime ministerial election. They could have repudiated Oslo without repudiating seperation from the Palestinians. This would require however the party to commit to national unity in face of the Palestinian threat, while simultaneously offering alternative options of separation. Instead, they left a popular unity government, adopted a platform of unconditional negotiations, and ruled out returning to another desperately needed unity government. The coming debate over joining a unity government may very well cause the inevitable fracture of doves and centrists. The doves will join their leader Yossi Beillin as part of a Greater Meretz, and the centrists will follow their constituency out of the party - to Shinui, Likud or another centrist alternative.


2) What's Sharon's best option? How likely is it to happen?



Sharon's best option is a centrist coalition with Labor & Shinui (and the other centrist parties) that adds up to a firm 77-seat majority. This will provide Sharon with cover diplomatically, permit him to finesse the more hawkish members of his party when necessary for popular consensus or relations with the U.S., and significantly create a government with a powerful mandate for domestic reforms - so that he can present the electorate with some sort of progress when the possibility for diplomatic breakthroughs looks bleak over the next few years. This of course would require a wresting of control of Labor from Mitzna, and a willingness for Sharon to tolerate short-term backlash from the religious extremists while reaping longer-term support from the average Israeli.


It is far more likely, however, that Sharon will attempt to put together the same coalition that he just had - with Labor, NRP, Shas and UTJ. (77 seats).



If the Labor doves succeed in keeping the party out of the government, Sharon's best option would be to cobble a compromise between NRP and Shinui on cultural issues (slowly undoing the Haredi welfare system, but not pushing forward with civil marriage), add the two centrist parties, and form a narrow government of 62 mandates. This would put Sharon in a prime position to lure Labor defectors into the government.

THE OFF THE PINE GUIDE TO THE ISRAEL ELECTIONS

Part Three: My Ballot

Today is election day throughout Israel, and alas non-citizen Israeli political junkies do not actually get to vote. Here’s a quick summary of what I’d do with my very own ballot.


The Little Fish


First things, first – there’s simply no way I would vote for a party that might not even pass the threshold, which in Israel is a ridiculously low 1.5% of the electorate. If I wanted to throw my vote away, I’d move to D.C. I’ll break them down accordingly:

Those with no chance, that I’ve never heard of: Ahavat Yisrael, Citizen and State, Lahava, Leeder, Organization for Democratic Action, Progressive National Alliance, and Za’am.


Those with no chance, that I’ve heard of: Center (what’s left of it after all but one MK jumped to Shinui and Likud), Gesher, Greens, Ra’ash (Men’s Rights in Family – not making that one up), Tzomet, and Another Israel (A new generation of Israeli leaders – with no followers).


Those with a chance: Green Leaf (endorsed by High Times Magazine), Herut (right-wing fanatics who could use a little green leaf to chill out).


The Longshots


United Arab List & Balad (1999: 7, Projected 6-8)

Why: The yawning gap in services between the Jewish and Arab sectors

Why Not: Seem more interested in the well being of Assad, Hezbollah and Arafat than their own voters.


Hadash (1999:3, Projected 2-3)

Why: A joint Arab-Jewish list!!!

Why Not: Communism (see failed experiments throughout world 1917-1989)


National Unity (1999:8, Projected 8-10)

Why: They have a clear plan for how Israel should resolve the Palestinian conflict

Why Not: It bears a striking similarity to Milosevic's plan to resolve the Kosovo conflict



Torah and Shabbat Judaism (1999: 5, Projected 4-5)

Why: I’m a big fan of Torah and Shabbat

Why Not: Not as they practice it (e.g. pelting egalitarian services with stones)



Shas (1999: 17; Projected 10-13)

Why: While I’m not a traditional Sephardi immigrant – I feel their pain

Why Not: Would you want a party that combined the worst of Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson controlling a fifth of your government?



One Nation (1999: 2; Projected 2-3)

Why: They stand up for the working man in an increasingly global Israeli economy

Why Not: Israel’s unions are so strong that one of things I was taught in Ulpan was the word for strike (shvita).



National Religious Party (1999:5; Projected 4-5)

Why: Their great heritage as a bridge between secular Zionists and religious Jews

Why Not: A large portion of their voters have been suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome since around 1967.



Meretz (1999:9; Projected 7-10)

Why: A deep commitment to environmental protection, education reform, and rights for ethnic and religious minorities (including liberal Judaism)

Why Not: Israel happens to be in the Middle East, not Europe or North America. The dovish Meretzniks seem to be in denial about this fact (or like Yossi Beillin too smart to comprehend the self-destructive behavior of the PA after Oslo).



The Contenders



Labor (1999:26; Projected 18-20)

Why: They built the country. For years, they produced pragmatic leaders such as Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin that combined vigilance with openness towards peace.

Why Not: They're led by Amnon Mitzna - who has come out 1) in favor of negotiating with Arafat, and 2) against sitting in a national unity government. This is not a responsible way for Labor to help clean up the Oslo mess they made.



Likud (1999:19; Projected 30-33)

Why: Sharon managed to stamp down the Palestinian offensive while maintaining national unity and Israel’s relationship with the U.S.

Why Not: Only Sharon knows what Sharon’s long-term plan is. An unwillingness to distinguish the Gaza settlements from Greater Jerusalem, or halt the expansion of settlements is disconcerting. Sharon will take only as many “painful steps” as the rest of his coalition forces him to take.



Shinui (1999:6; Projected 13-16)

Why: For years, Ultra-Orthodox parties have played the two major parties against each other to obtain a stranglehold of the issues of personal status, squeeze the Israeli budget dry to subsidize their yeshiva-schnorr lifestyle, and promote their fundamentalist version of Judaism. Shinui is the first party take on that challenge directly, by offering itself as an alternate swing party. They also happen to fallen into the sensible center on security issues, almost by default.
Why Not: Their anti-Orthodox rhetoric often crosses the line to blackhataphobia.



Yisrael B’Aliyah (1999:6; Projected: 3-6)

Why Not: I’m contributing to the chaos of Israel politics by strengthening a small party.

Why: With Sharon a lock to repeat as prime minister, I have the luxury of not having to vote for the big party I dislike the least. Quite simply, I believe Israel benefits tremendously from having Natan Sharansky in the cabinet. He was the first major politician to realize the futility of negotiating with an autocratic Palestinian partner. His party seeks to restore secular-religious balance without divisive rhetoric. I’m a softy for ex-refusniks.



So if you see Natan, tell him I would have voted for him – if I could have voted.

THE OFF THE PINE GUIDE TO THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS Part Two: The 2003 Campaign



The Primaries:

Sharon easily held off a challenge from Bibi in the Likud primary vote for prime minister, and Bibi wisely decided to accept the role as No.2 in the party and heir-apparent. In early December, Likud appeared on the bring of a staggering victory, with over 40 mandates a realistic goal. The Likud general primary (which is really more of a caucus) became a wide-open free-for-all, attracting newcomers to the party to compete for the plentiful number of new seats to be had in the next Knesset. The results of the Likud primary proved head-scratching, as minor politicos placed much higher than party luminaries such as Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. It was soon emerged that the reason behind the odd result was a massive vote-buying scandal, which served to clip Likud’s wings as it entered the general election.


Labor, on the other hand, was coming apart at the seams. In the aftermath of the collapse of Oslo and Sharon’s trouncing of Barak, Labor, led by Shimon Peres and Benjamen Ben-Eliezer brough the party into a national government headed by Sharon. The Labor hawks, led by Ben-Eliezer, defended the move as essential to the national interest in a time of war and that the stamping out of the Palestinian offensive was a precursor to any serious progress towards peace. The Labor doves, led by Yossi Beilin, denounced the decision as an abandonment of Labor’s core principles, as well as a blurring of Labor’s political identity. In the primaries, the Labor rank and file proved to be as conflicted and divided as their leadership. Haifa mayor Amnon Mitzna, a staunch dove who advocated unconditional negotiations with Arafat and unilateral withdrawal from the territories as a fall-back, was voted in as the Labor candidate for prime minister. Only weeks later, however, in the general primary, Labor voters handed the Labor hawks a decisive victory over the Labor doves. Beillin himself received such a low spot on the Labor list that he defected to Meretz shortly thereafter. Labor therefore entered the general campaign as muddled as it had been before the primaries.


The General Campaign:

Things went from bad to worse for Likud in the end of December, when it was rocked by yet another scandal, this time involving Sharon’s use of foreign funds in his 2001 campaign. By January 9, Likud was polling at only 27 seats, a mere 3 more than listless Labor. Two recent events, however, radically reversed this trend. First, the Israel Election Commission pulled the plug on a Sharon press conference called to address the scandal charges for violating Israel’s election propaganda law. Likud supporters who had been turned off by the scandals, were incensed, and rallied around the prime minister. Second, Mitzna announced that Labor would not join another national unity government under Sharon. This pretty much killed what little momentum Labor had. With a week to go before the election, Likud had extended its lead back to 12 seats.


The main beneficiaries of the stumbles of Labor and Likud have been the sectarian and special interest parties - the very ones who appeared endangered by the return to the old system. Instead the secularist Shinui party appears to be on the verge of doubling or even tripling its current 6 seats. Meanwhile, the religious Shas party, which in early polls was projected to lose half of its 17 seats, has rebounded in the past few weeks, not the least because of Shinui’s surge. Polls show that parties to the left of Labor and right of Likud will maintain their current strength, and that the Arab parties will not suffer from a possible boycott (with fizzled with the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to permit Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara to run). Plenty of votes remained up for grabs - with even the pro-ganga Green Leafers holding on to a realistic chance of a mandate.


The continuing success of the sectarian parties, in light of the return to the one-ballot system and dominance of the security situation, needs further explaination. Their gains in the past two elections were fueled by Oslo-inspired optimism towards peace – that Israel could now afford to address its long-neglected domestic disputes. The Oslo War has replaced the optimism of the 1990s with a profound pessimism, yet the sectarian parties strength remains intact. In a sense, many Israeli voters seem to be sending the message that they don’t believe any proffered solution will solve the country’s foreign problems any time soon, so the country might as well address its domestic problems in the interim. (Another factor may be that the absence of a competitive race for the largest party with the collapse of Labor). The end result is instead of a return to the two major party dynamic of the 1980s, a four-party dynamic of Likud, Labor, Shinui and Shas has emerged. As a result, Ariel Sharon will face an exceptionally difficult task of putting together a stable, cohesive government.

THE OFF THE PINE GUIDE TO THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS Part One: The First Post-Oslo Election


The Old-New System:

Up until 1996, Israel had a straightforward parliamentary system, in which voters cast one ballot for the 120-seat Knesset, and parties were assigned seats based on their proportion of the national vote. The leader of the party with the most seats then had the first opportunity to form a government by building a coalition of parties amounting to a majority. The leader of the largest party in the government (which in most cases was the largest party) would then become prime minister.


For the 1996 election, Israel switched to a unique process where voters cast one ballot in a direct election of the prime minister, and a second ballot for the Knesset. This reform strengthened the prime minister, who had a popular mandate to fall back upon, but devastated both major parties, as voters had the option to vote for the prime minister whose security platform they trusted, and for the party that addressed their social, cultural and economic concerns. (Labor & Likud’s joint total fell from 72 seats in 1992 to 45 seats in 1999).


With the return of the pure parliamentary system, there was a potential for radically reversing the trends of the last two elections, especially in an post-Oslo context where national security was once more the dominant issue on the national agenda.


The Oslo War:

In the late 1990s, the stranglehold of national security issues over the Israeli political agenda appeared to have lifted. The internal fissures in Israeli society, most notably the split between secular and religious Jews had taken center stage. The 1990s boom had remade the Israeli economy as a high-tech export power, but also radically increased the inequality between rich and poor, urban coast and the rest of the country. All these issues have been buried by the Oslo War, which was launched in October 2000 as violent repudiation of the Israeli offer at Camp David. The war brought about a number of previously unthinkable events: the political resurrection of Ariel Sharon, the Labor-Likud unity government, and the eventual reoccupation of most of the territories in the aftermath of the Palestinians’ brutal Spring 2002 terror offensive. Thus, in a way, not only was Israel returning to its pre-Olso political system, it was also returning to its pre-Oslo politics centered on issues of national security.


This was the backdrop to the election - a golden opportunity for Likud to establish itself as Israel's ruling party, and for Labor to consolidate its position as the principal contender for that role. As the increasing chaotic campaign season progressed, it became more and more apparent that the two major parties were squandering these opportunities.

HA'ARETZ SYNDROME

David Newman's op-ed in the Times is a classic demonstration of Ha'aretz Syndrome, the delusionary state suffered by the Israeli Left and its fellow travellers in the diaspora after the collapse of Oslo. Its central symptom is a description of the peace process in which the only relevant actors are Israelis. For a sufferer of Ha'aretz Syndrome, it was Israeli actions that led to the demise of Oslo, and Israeli actions that can repair the current breach. It is above all a syndrome borne out of deep denial, of the frightening reality of the powerlessness of Israelis to stop the Palestinians fateful choice for war, and the impotence of Israel's best and brightest visionaries to develop a viable plan for peace until the Palestinians repudiate that decision.

THE GREAT ZIONIST MIDDLE

It's become more and more common parlance among the left to assert that anyone who defends Israel's retaliation against Palestinian terror must be a hard-line opponent of a compromise peace. This ignorance (willful or not) obscures the more nuanced views of the great Zionist middle who embraced the Oslo process, but now understand it as a debacle, brought down by both its inherent weaknesses and short-sighted implementation. Professor Shlomo Avineri's latest op-ed speaks from our persective.

So that there should be no mistake: I am against Jewish settlements in the territories; I strongly feel that setting them up was a major mistake; and I am ready for dismantling settlements as part of a real peace package. But anyone who compares settlement activities to suicide bombings targeting civilians is a moral cripple.

Rather than throwing out "Likud" as a pejorative (I'd like to see Alterman write a coherent paragraph that cites Jabotinksy) and impugning the Zionist's center's clear commitment to a negotiated peace, the Left should take some time to reflect on why their morality is so crippled when it comes to Israel.

MANY JERUSALEMS, DIVISIBLE AND DEADLY

Israel has captured the Hamas cell responsible for the Hebrew University massacre and a number of other grisly terror attacks. The truly frightening news is that the cell was located within Jerusalem itself. As much as their capture is a stunning success for Israeli intelligence, it demonstrates the utter failure of its Jerusalem policy - in which the Israeli government has deluded itself into believing that there exists one Jerusalem, indivisible. In fact there are many Jerusalems - but most significantly there is the Ancient Jerusalem of the Old City, a Jewish Jerusalem (neo-schtetl and modern) and a completely unassimilated Arab Jerusalem. It is painfully obvious that putting a wall around Jerusalem's borders with the West Bank will accomplish little with Hamas lurking just down the hill from the university, or across the road from City Hall. Israel needs to choose between two unpalatable alternatives - to seperate Arab Jerusalem from the rest of the city - or to seperate Arabs from Jerusalem. It can no longer afford to craft its policy around a fantasy of a Jerusalem that dovetails more with messianic dreams than actual reality.

ALTER(KOCKER)MAN TAKES A CONSISTENT PRO MASSACRE STANCE

Eric Alterman, who claims to be anti-Hamas, thinks that Marwan Barghouti, who spearheaded Fatah's violent response to Camp David is a freedom fighter. He also has kind words to say about Brent Scowcraft, the man most responsible for Bush I's tepid response to Tianemman Square. Well at least he's being consistent.

MEMRI AND BIAS

Alterman approvingly cites a piece in the Israel-hating Guardian that bashes MEMRI for cherry-picking outrageous items in its translation of the Arabic press. Apparently the Altered One, who is quite adroit himself in using slimy tactics to advance his anti-Israel views thinks that the Guardian and CAIR are reliable sources on which to evaluate an analysis of Middle East news. The Guardian's smear tactics however, fail to impugn MEMRI's integrity. The sad truth is that the rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are prevalent in the Islamic world - and the mere concept of an Arab equivalent to Ha'aretz is laughable. Quite simply, there is ample evidence of Israeli respect for the humanity of Arabs and Muslims, and little to no evidence of Arab and Muslim respect for the humanity of Jews. MEMRI's selections merely reflects this reality.

SPARKS EXTINGUISHED

These portraits provide only a glimpse of the light that was taken from this world in Wednesday's massacre:

:
Ben Blutstein was a graduate of Dickinson College with a BA in Judaic Studies. He was a serious scholar, but also knew how to explore the lighter side of life. Unlike most Orthodox Jews, Blutstein was found in the hottest clubs around the country, first as DJ Ultrasound, and later as DJ Benny-B.

His friends remember him as a warm, funny individual with a gruff exterior but a heart of gold. "In a learning situation he could be really rough and tough, always striving for truth. He would get mad when he thought people weren't being true to the text. But in the spring, when his father and little sister came to visit, he was so gentle with her; it was amazing to see this person who could be so passionate be so gentle," said Yisrael Campbell-Hochstein, also a master's student and a study-partner of Blutstein's.

"He had a real sense of fun," said Saskia Swenson, now entering her third year at Pardes. Blutstein and Swenson headed up the house band, Women, Children, and Minors. "He was such an alive person."

Marla Bennett was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, with a BA in Political Science and an English minor. Friends spoke about her as a beautiful young woman with quiet grace, a calming presence.
"She was a real jewel, very beloved. You couldn't be in her presence and not smile with her," said Landes.

Friends called her a true listener, quietly offering needed support. All spoke about her magical smile which would crinkle her nose.

Responding to the concern of friends and family abroad, Bennett wrote in a column for her hometown paper, the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage: "I have a front-row seat for the history of the Jewish people. I am a part of the struggle for Israel's survival."

"She brought light into a room; something about her just glowed so warmly. She drew you into her warmth," said Hershman.

AMERICANS DIE, PALESTINIANS DANCE

It is now known that 5 of the victims of the Hebrew University massacre were Americans. Young Americans, cut down in the prime of life, their sparks extinguished by pure, barbaric evil. The scene in Gaza - jubilation, with sweets being tossed out to a massive crowd. When the oh-so-enlightened Euro-philic elite try to assure you that "both sides are equally at fault" and "both sides have the same values" and "both sides deserve American support and aid," remember that scene. Once more, as after September 11, Americans died, and Palestians danced. Our enemies may be weaker than us, but they are enemies nonetheless.

PALESTINIAN REMORSE

In yet one more ritual in the Palestinian death-cult, thousands of Palestinians marched in support of the Hebrew University massacre. And yet we are told on a daily basis, that of all the stateless peoples on earth, these people deserve statehood the most. There is no greater lie in international discourse. Here's when we'll know that the Palestinians are truly deserving of a state - when thousands of Palestinians take to the streets to oppose these wanton acts of savage murder, to say in a clear voice that Jews are fellow humans. We've heard far too many lies from the self-proclaimed "leaders" of the Palestinians speaking of peace and reconciliation. The silence from a genuine Arab call to peace is deafening.

MASSACRE ON CAMPUS

For one year I lived at the base of Mt. Scopus, which since 1925 has housed the Hebrew University. Every day, I would walk up from the dormitory apartment I shared with Protestant, Catholic, Mormon and Muslims roomates, past the Old British cemetary and Hadassah hospital before finally reaching the campus proper, which sprawled across the summit. The campus is architecturally brilliant, featuring interlocking terraces, stone steps and spectacular panoramic views of the Old City and the Mount of Olives. In typical Jewish philanthropic fashion, every wall, bench and plaza honored at least one, if not more than one donor. Nestled in with the standard Bronfmans, Rothbergs, Idelsons and Resnicks were other more surprinsing names. Near the center of the campus sprawled the Nancy Reagan Plaza, and bounding it on the left was the Frank Sinatra building, which featured the largest and best of the campus cafeterias. I had many a memorable discussion over schnitzel and fruit drinks in that dining hall.

Earlier today that cafeteria was turned into the scene of a massacre. Once more, the fearless Palestinian free-dom fighters chose not to risk attacking a military target, but instead murdered unarmed civillians. In yet one more act of base evil, students, many of them from foreign countries there to participate in the wondrous openess of academic exchange, were struck down for no other reason but a bottomless hatred.

How much more evil do the Palestinians have to perpetrate before they demonstrate the first glimmer of self-reflection and penitence? How long before we hear a Palestinian condemnation of this war that they started on moral, and not just tactical grounds? Yes, the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian towns is heartbreaking. But all the Palestinian spokespeople can do is cast blame upon Israel for their peoples tribulations. Yet, it is the Palestinian leadership who is truly responsible for the current plight of their people. They chose to respond to the Camp David offer with war - they chose the strategy of provoking Israel in an effort to bring in international intervention. They brought this upon their people - not Israel. If the Palestinian leadership really cared about its people it would do what any honorable losing government does when it has lost its war of agression - concede defeat, renounce violence, and subordinate their political dreams to the urgent real needs of their people.

THE HEBRON HEADACHE

While its unclear to what extent the mourners of Elazar Leibovitz were incited (I've tried to piece together what really happened from the conflicting reports in the Times, Ha'aretz, JPost and settler-phillic Arutz-Sheva), there is no excuse for their actions. Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit must back up his pledge to deal with the rioters "with a heavy hand." Vigilante action is unacceptable. There is only one Israeli Defense Force - that has been settled since the dawn of the state.

Punishing those who screamed "Death to Arabs", while firing at random and overturning market stalls, is insufficient. Serious thought, however, has to be given to extracting the settlers from Hebron. Anyone who had read Genesis is fully aware that this is not a statement for a religious Jew to make lightly. Hebron is not Gaza - there is very much a deep historic and religious connection between the city and the Jewish people. It is the parcel of land purchased by Abraham in the Bible - it was the capital before Jerusalem, it is the resting place of the Patriarchs. But this is still insufficient justification to demand subjugation of 100,000 Arabs for the benefit of 400 Jews. It is even less, when those 400 Jews to dominate the affairs of the 100,000 Arab residents of the city.
Even worse is when those 400 Jews are the adherents of a militant messianism that Judaism had been spared of for almost 2,000 years. Israel needs to face this headache sooner or later. It might as well do so from a position of relative strength.

THE GAZA STRIKE

Israel's much anticipated strike at Hamas' Gaza base happened last night, but in an unexpected form - through the air, as opposed to an incursion into Palestinian-controlled territory. The attack sucessfully took out its intended target - Salah Shehada, but the blast also killed 13 bystanders, including 9 children. It is always tragic when children are killed, even in war. Still, there can be no equating of this attack with the ones Shehada planned - which had as their aim to massacre as many civilians as possible. The stark reality facing Israel is that there is no way for it to eliminate Palestinian military targets without civilian casualties. Palestinian terrorists deliberately use civilians as human shields - viewing the death of their fellow Palestinians as simply adding to a laudable martyr tally.

Admittedly, an air strike in such a circumstance, no matter how surgical, is a rather blunt instrument. In the wake of the Jenin "massacre", it is understandle why Israel is shying away from the alternative of block-to-block urban combat. Such an approach places Israel's soldiers at great risk, and the reduction in civilian casulties is not appreciated by the international community. The reward for Israel's caution last time was an international lynch-mob ready to hang the state on a specious massacre charge (complete with falsified evidence being prepared for the UN team).

The "safe" attack on Israel is the lie that such an attack merely provokes Hamas. First, it should be perfectly clear that Hamas would be no less angry had the Israelis accomplished what they set out to do - kill only Shehada. Whatever revenge Hamas is claiming to seek stems from his death, not the unfortunate deaths of those near him. Second, Hamas' goal is the destruction of Israel. An organization with such maximalist goals can not be "provoked" into killing Israelis - that is its raison d'etre. For there to be any hope of peace between Israel and the Palestinians Hamas must be eliminated.

Still, there is not much to rejoice at in the Gaza strike. The Israeli government continues to think tactically, rather than strategically. In the long run, Hamas can not only be defeated by military strikes - it must be rendered completely irrelevant, by a government in Gaza that provides the critical social services that Hamas now uses to spread its gospel of hate and war.

PALESTINIAN MURDER IN THE SLUMS OF TEL AVIV

For better or worse, Tel Aviv symbolizes the "normal" Israel. Jerusalem feels timeless, intoxicating - you can feel the sprititual density of the place. Tel Aviv, on the other hand feels like Miami - but substituting Sabra stunners for lovely Latinas. Of course, like any other "normal" city - Tel Aviv has its seemy side. It is not only Israel's leading center of finance, art and culture - it is also Israel's leading center of prostitution, drug use and exploitation of illegal immigrants. In the years since the Palestinians exchanged
working in Israel for working to destroy Israel, Tel Aviv has become flooded with foreign workers from all over the world - Thailand, Nigeria, Romania. The center of these immigrant communities is in the poor southern part of Tel Aviv. For too long, Israeli policy has neglected the needs of these new communities, and a confused immigration law has left many in limbo. The hard truth is that even at its worst, the slums of Tel Aviv are better than the hopelessness that these people left behind in their home countries.

It was this neighborhood that was rocked by Palestinian suicide bombers today. So much for the unity of the "oppressed", and people of color. No, for much of the Palestinian movement, the world is now divided in two - those who shun (or better kill) Jews, and anyone who treats Jews as human beings - making them fair targets. The massacre of Israeli Arabs who dared to break bread with Jews in Haifa demonstrated as much, and this massacre confirms it.

Tommorrow's spin by the liberal punditocracy will be predictable - this attack proves the futility of Israel's military tactics - no amount of force can eliminate Palestinian terror - Israel should withdraw from Palestinian towns, yada yada yada. What the liberal punditocracy fails to see (and what triumphalist hawks feed into with premature crowing) is that there is nothing Israel can do to eliminate Palestinian terror. The harsh reality is that if Israel was not currently in the territories, today's attack would have been only one of many in a constant barrage of Palestinian terror. One bombing a month is tragic - but its much better than two a week. The fence that is going up at a snail's pace, will help.

Is there anything else Israel can do in the meantime to stem these attacks? The best way may be to begin a process of retaliating to terror attacks by annexing settlements - beginning with those closest to the border and most likely to be incorporated into Israel anyway. It's pretty clear that while the Palestinians care little about life, they care much about land. It seems quite fair then that every ounce of blood they spill should cost them - in a steadily shrinking state that mirrors their steadily shrinking moral stature.

EMMANUEL: IS IT IN OR IS IT OUT?

The Palestinian "freedom fighters" are at it again. While it may be an impressive act of skill to torch a civilian bus with a military convoy - think about the morality of this action for a second. Faced with a myriad of Israeli military targets (which the West Bank does not lack for these days), Palestinian terrorists went out of their way to inflict as much damage as possible on a harder-to-reach civilian target. Needless to say, there have been few, if any resistance movements more morally bankrupt resistance movement than that of the Palestinians.

The relevant question that this attack brings up for Israel is not another round of "there is no military solution" jabbering, but a painful decision about which settlements are worth integrating into the rest of the country, and which settlements cost far more to defend that they are worth. There are some easy decisions here - Gush Etzion is a no brainer for annexation, Netzarim will sooner or later, be evacuated. Emmanuel, however, is currently in an unclear middle ground. Is it to become the eastern-most point in a thickened Israeli center, or is it be considered part of Greater Nablus, and abandoned. Either way, Israel needs to decide this now - while they are keeping the territories in check and building the security fence. If they choose wisely, Israel will be able to have a much cleaner withdrawal and a much greater chance for a peaceful partition with a responsible Arab peace partner.

SORRY, SARI

The liberal punditocracy, desperate for Israeli action they can equate with suicide bombings have jumped all over the recent closure of the Jerusalem offices of Sari Nusseibeh, the PA's appointed head of Jerusalem Affairs. Josh Marshall, while overplaying the issue at least describes it as a foolish move. Eric Alterman of course reads the action as part of a Sharon/Bush plan for perpetual war. Its not as if they arrested Nusseibeh, they merely closed an office that the PA shouldn't have tried to open in the first place. Its one thing to say that Israel should look the other way about what the PA is doing in Jerusalem when it is cooperative on other fronts, but completely another to argue for this when PA is still at de facto war with Israel.

Yes, the prospects for peace would increase dramatically if Sari Nusseibeh's positions magically became the Palestinain political consensus. Yes, the Likud has an inflexible, unrealistic position on Jerusalem - a city that is already in effect divided. But lets get real - this is much ado about nothing. There is no viable peace partner or process at the moment. The removal of isolated settlements is far more important than any posturing that Sharon, Olmert and Landau do on Jerusalem. Sorry, Sari - I wish you well in convincing your people to abandon their political madness. If you do, I'd gladly welcome you into new digs on Sal-a-din Street. In meantime however, I'd advise you to check out real estate in Abu Dis.

ISRAELI DEMOCRACY STILL WORKS

The Jerusalem Post reports that the firestorm of criticism over the bill designed to circumvent the Katzir decision has led Prime Minister Sharon to table the bill, and look to modify the language to make it more acceptable to Israeli Arabs.

MORE ON KATZIR

Today's Ha'aretz has some useful coverage on the issue. I endorse the articles, with reservations, especially Ha'aretz typically uncritical appraisal of the Barak Court's Dworkinan understanding of democracy.

1) On the potential constitutional conflict.

2) The Attorney General's opposition to the bill

3) How the controversial bill is an effort to reestablish the status quo ante that existed prior to the Court's 2000 opinion.

4) The betrayal felt by Arab members of the Labor party of their leadership's failure to vote against the cabinet resolution supporting the bill (they were conveniently absent at the time of the cabinet vote).

KATZIR IN THE KNESSET: WHY A SHAKY DECISION SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE

In a landmark decision in March 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the long-standing policy of transferring state land to the Jewish Agency, whose mission from pre-state times has been to develop Jewish communities in the land of Israel was illegal discrimination. The case came about when an Israeli Arab citizen was blocked from moving into Katzir, a town built by the Jewish Agency in 1982 in an effort to establish a more favorable demographic balance in the area, which abutted the '67 border. The decision has to be considered the one of the most audacious examples of the Barak Court's activism. Implying the principle of equality into Israel's land allocation laws, the Barak Court ruled that the Israeli government could not directly or indirectly (through the Jewish Agency) discriminate against Israeli Arabs in the issue of housing. The decision was a courageous judicial declaration of minority rights in a democracy. Unfortunately, this declaration was based upon little more than the ideals of the justices. The status of non-Jewish minority has never been clearly defined under Israeli law. Israel has no equivalent to the Equal Protection Clause (nor a binding constitution, despite the claims of the Barak Court to the contrary) While non-Jews in Israel have some of the most essential democratic rights (voting, freedom of expression,etc.) most public institutions and services are separate and decidedly not equal. This, more than anything connected with the occupation of Palestinians, is the biggest stain upon Israeli democracy.

From the moment the Katzir decision came down, it was inevitable that it would be challenged in the Knesset. As Israel has no constitution, in theory any Court decision can be overturned by Knesset legislation. Thus, the National Religious Party has proposed a bill that will explicitly allow state land to be alotted solely to Jews. Proponents of the bill feel that such authority is essential to preserve Israel as a Jewish state - by establishing Jewish communities in areas of pre-67 Israel that are demographically suspect (the Gailee) or especially vulnerable (border areas).

The proposed bill is a disaster on many levels. First, it is repugnant to the principles of democracy and not essential to Israel's existence as a Jewish State (unlike for example, the Law of Return). It is one thing to limit the rights of specific Israeli Arabs that identify with Israel's enemies and seek to destroy the state - it is another to treat all non-Jews in Israel as a fifth column that needs to be suppressed. Second, it is likely to create a constitutional crisis that is for the moment avertable. The response of the Barak Court to this legislation will be to rule it unconstitutional, holding that it violates the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. That would be unproblematic if it weren't for the fact that said Basic Law wasn't even passed by a majority of the Knesset, let alone adopted through a heightened constitutional process. The precariousness of the Barak Court's assertion of judicial review has led it to tread lightly until now, striking down only low-profile legislation. A decision to strike down Knesset legislation designed to overturn Katzir will bring the issue of the Court's authority front and center. Third, if the bill is designed to minimize the threat Israeli Arabs pose to Israel's security, it is woefully misdirected policy. Segregating and degrading Israeli Arabs will only heighten their alienation from Israel and enhance their identification with the Palestinians. On the other hand, if Israeli Arabs were given equal access as individuals to the economic and educational opportunities of Israel society, they are more likely to have a stake in the survival of the state. At the present time, opposition to the bill is centered on its potential damage to Israel's image. Far more attention needs to be paid to the bill's potential damage to Israel's reality

SUICIDE BOMBINGS: MEANS TO ONLY ONE END

Winds of Change pointed me to this excellent analytical piece by Stratfor.com on how the tactic of suicide bombings plays into Palestinian long-term strategy. Here is the most central part of their analysis.

The suicide bombing campaign cannot be intended to achieve any significant short-term goal. First, it is not likely to generate a peace movement in Israel --quite the contrary. Second, it locks the United States into alignment with Israel, rather than driving a wedge between the two. Finally, it creates an extreme psychology within the Palestinian community that makes political flexibility all the more difficult. The fervor that creates suicide bombers also creates a class of martyrs whose sacrifices are difficult to negotiate away. The breadth and intensity of the suicide bombings force us to conclude that the Palestinian leadership is focusing on a long-term strategy of holding the Palestinians together in a sense of profound embattlement, transforming the dynamics of the Arab world and then striking at Israel from a position of strength. In short, the Palestinians think that time is on their side and that sacrifices for a generation or two will yield dividends later. If they wait, they will win.

Here Palestinian strategy, intentionally or unintentionally, intersects with that of al Qaeda, which also is committed to a radical transformation of the Islamic world. Its confrontation with the United States is designed to set the stage for this transformation, enabling the Islamic world to engage and defeat the enemies of Islam.

One of the critical mistakes that observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make is to analyse the conflict outside of the wider context of the Middle East. Olso was only possible because of the nadir of anti-Western forces in the Arab-Islamic world after the Cold War and Gulf War. The rise of Islamism has changed that calculus - once more raising the hopes of a unified front (this time in pan-Islamic as opposed to pan-Arabic terms) capable of eliminating Western influence and Israel from the region.

Thus, the only way to peace in the Middle East is to create a truly "New Middle East." The United States can either act agressively to foster a liberal, democratic Islamic world, or it will find itself engaged in a long conflict with a militant Islamic world dreaming of recovering past glories and repaying past defeats.

BUSH TO PALESTINIANS: TERROR OR A STATE - CHOOSE ONE

In the end it was a speech worth waiting for. It delineated the correct goals of a lasting Arab-Israeli peace, and the true conditions for such a peace. For once, all of the Foggy Bottom equivocation was gone, and in a rarety of diplomatic parlance, honesty pervaded the message.

Bush on the relationship between Palestinian terror and Israeli occupation.

It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself.

The message is clear - Palestinian terror is the cause of the Israeli re-occupation, not the other way around. The Palestinians, like all people, deserve to live without such occupation - if they are willing to live in peace with their neighbors.

Bush on the connection between a change in Palestinian leadership and a Palestinian state:

Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born...And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East..... A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.

According to the news reports Bush balanced his position conditioning Palestinian statehood upon reform by embracing the Arab position that Israel must fully withdrawal to the untenable '67 borders. Thus, according to the AP:

In his speech, Bush demanded Israel withdraw to positions it held on the West Bank two years ago and to stop building homes for Jews on the West Bank and in Gaza. Ultimately, he said, Israel should agree to pull all the way back to the lines it held before the 1967 Mideast war.

In his speech however, Bush merely reiterated the traditional U.S. position that while Israel should withdrawal from most of the West Bank, final status of the borders must take into account Israel's security interests.

This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognize[d] borders.

Finally, in the most stirring language of the speech, Bush proclaimed a vision of freedom and democracy throughout the Islamic world.

I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality, and learning, and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes, or Western hopes. They are universal, human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.

The hard part of course is to move from these hopeful words to a better reality. However, it is wrong to discount the importance of vision in foreign policy. For all the nuance and knowledge that Bush the Elder had, he squandered it for wont of a vision. This speech shows that at least with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, W. has the vision his father lacked, and may leave a far more positive legacy on the world stage.

LESSONS OF OPERATION DEFENSIVE SHIELD

What are we to make of the fact that just two months after Israel's major incursion into the West Bank it finds itself once more admist a wave of suicide bombings, and once more responded with a major incursion into Area A. Mickey Kaus is sure he knows: opponents of the Sharon policy (such as Robert Wright) were clearly right, and supporters (such as Charles Krauthammer) were prematurely triumphalist. Kaus' snarky critique however is just as wrong as Wright's analysis has always been, as just as premature as Krauthammers' punditry was last month.

The amount of Palestinian terror is a function of both the capacity (supply) of the Palestinians to commit terror and the desire (demand) of the Palestinians to do so. The Palestinian Terror Supply is roughly determined by the following factors: (1) organizational support and structure, (2) supply of explosives/weapons, (3) havens/bases of operation, (4) manpower, and (5) access to targets. The Palestinian Terror Demand is determined by (a) attitude/ideology towards Israel (b) potential costs and benefits of terror; and (c) cost/benefits of alternative approaches to terror.

Let's look then at the accomplishments of Operation Defensive Shield. First, it disrupted the terrorist organizational structure by arresting and killing militant leaders. Second, it was able to recover and destroy a vast cache of explosives and weapons. Third, while the operation was ongoing it eliminated terrorist access to West Bank cities as bases of operation and havens from Israeli attacks. Fourth, again during the operation it significantly reduced access to Israeli civilian targets. On the demand side, its unclear whether the costs of widespread destruction of PA infrastructure were seen as higher than the political gains of the PA in the diplomatic arena.

It's obvious from this analysis why the gains of the mission were only temporary. Once the IDF had pulled back - Palestinian terrorists regained access to PA territory as bases of operation and once more had access to Israeli targets through the porous West Bank-Israel border. Once they recovered sufficiently in terms of organization and supplies they were able to launch another wave of attacks. Similarly, the negative consequnces of terror for Palestinians were clearly bounded - the reoccupation was temporary, and Arafat was guarenteed protection from exile.

This analysis is widely different from that of Robert Wright, who (1) discounts any attempts to limit the supply of terror (by bizarrely positing manpower as the limiting factor) and (2) limits his demand analysis to the Palestinian attitude towards Israel. His conclusion, inevitably, is that Israel should respond to Palestinian terror with restraint and concessions - because this will somehow radically change Palestinian attitudes towards Israel and not be interpreted as validating the pro-terror policy. Krauthammer on the other hand focuses on the Palestinians capacity for terror, along with the cost/benefit analysis of the terror policy. Krauthammer's mistake in trumpeting the Sharon policy was his premature conclusion that a two week operation significantly impacted that capacity and the calculus of the Palestinian leadership.

Which brings us back to the current policy adopted by Sharon after the latest wave of bombings. Unlike the April incursion, this reoccupation is designed to be of indefinite length. This will both increase the IDF's ability to reduce terror capacity - and more importantly, change the cost-benefit analysis for the Palestinian pragmatists. If the reaction of Palestinian leaders (most notably the petition against suicide bombing signed by Sari Nusseibeh and Hanan Ashwari) is any indication, already this new policy has already had a positive impact. Only when the Palestinians have given up on getting land for nothing will they finally consent to land for peace.

LABOR'S CRITICAL ROLE: DEVELOPING AN EXIT STRATEGY

One of the most twisted elements of the international campaign against Israel was its decrying of an occupation that didn't exist. Before Arafat's War, as part of their obligations under Oslo, Israel had withdrawn from all of the major Palestinian population centers. For the most part, what the IDF was occupying in October 1999 was the sparsely inhabited parts of the West Bank. In the twenty months of the Palestinian terror campaign, Israel has attempted every military option short of re-occupation - establishing check-points between Palestinian towns, surgical strikes against terror leaders, short incursions into towns and cities, and finally Operation Defensive Shield - a three week rolling incursion into Area A. While these activities have wrecked havoc on the Palestinian economy, none of these techniques have been effective at stemming the terror assaults.

In responding with this phased escalation, Israel made a drastic miscalculation about how the Palestinian leadership would respond - assuming that Arafat and his cronies would respond to their people's economic misery and respond by cutting off their offensive. It is now clear (as it should have been two years ago) that the only thing that mattered for the Palestinian leadership is amount of land under their control. Thus, the only the retaliatory response Israel could make that would have a true impact would be reoccupation of Area A. Finally, after exhausting the rest of their policy options, the Sharon government has adopted this strategy, directly pricing Palestinian terror with a loss of Palestinian sovreignity.

Considering the howls of protest over Israeli occupation when they weren't even occupying the Palestinian populated areas, there is no doubt that this policy will meet with storms of protests from the usual suspects - the Arab regimes, Europe and the State Department. Just as dangerous for Israel will be the attempt from their hard right to enlist the reoccupation in the cause of Greater Israel and the settlement movement, delinking it from its core counter-terror purpose. There is a critical need, therefore, for Israel to develop a clear exit strategy - one that gives encouragement to any Palestinian initiatives to abandon the terror campaign, and uses the reoccupation to redraw the map in a way that makes an eventual seperation feasible.

This task naturally falls to the Labor party. So far, Labor has wandered through its post-Barak phase rudderless, divided between unreconstructed champions of Oslo (Yossi Beillin and to some extent Peres), supporters of unilateral withdrawal (such as Haim Ramon), and those that support moderated versions of Sharon's policies (nominal party leader Ben-Eliezer and to some extent Peres). It is inevitable that at some point Labor will leave the government in an effort to develop an opposing party platform and regain power. This is not mere partisan politics - Labor and Likud's positions on the isolated settlements are unbridgeable. The temptation for Labor's would-be leaders (such as Beillin & Ramon) will be to use re-occupation as an exit issue. This however, will severely undercut Israel's ability to employ the tactic as a deterrent against Palestinian terror. Rather, what Labor needs to do now is provide a loyal opposition within the government - supporting the re-occupation, but affirming its interim status. They can do that by supporting an expedited time-table for building the security fence, and by clearly laying which settlements are to be evacuated upon the fence's completion. If Labor can develop such a policy, not only will it have a real chance to recover its status as Israel's leading party, it will be leading Israel in the right direction.

ANOTHER MASS MURDER IN JERUSALEM

The courageous freedom fighters of Hamas have struck again - this time blowing up schoolchildren and commuters on a Jerusalem bus. Israel has only one option that has a realistic chance of stemming the violence - reoccupying the West Bank until the fence gets built. I'd apologize for sounding like a broken record on this issue, except that I'm right.

THAT DARNED FENCE

The much ballyhooed security fence designed to seperate Palestinians from Israel is finally under construction at the northern edge of the West Bank. The first section seems to adhere mostly to the Green Line, with slight deviations. This has led to a storm of criticism, ranging from the insightful to the laughable about how, where, and why the fence is being erected.

According to Yassir Arafat, the fence is an exercise in fascism. He appears to be upset that Israel is not being more accomodating to the suicide bombers he has been sending out his controlled territory into Israel proper. I'm trying to contort my mind to discover the twisted reasoning that could support such a contention. Forget all the nonsense about "non-political security" fence, what Israel is building is a de facto border. It is not fascist for a nation to have borders and protect them. Sure, the fence is the final nail in the coffin for the "New Middle East" of open borders and economic cooperation, but Arafat pretty much buried the idea with his own embrace of terror and indoctrination against peace.

According to Yossi Sarid, the fence is invalid, because it does not adhere strictly to the 1967 borders. One would have to agree that with political leaders such as this, Israel does not need external enemies. Its one thing for foreign diplomats, far removed from the topography of the West Bank to fetishize the Green Line, but its completely another for anyone who will have to live with the final borders. The Green Line is simply an untenable border, and an invitation to constant conflict. At times it appears that the Israeli Left is most concerned with the reception of their policies in European op-ed pieces than in actually crafting a lasting peace.

According to the settlers, the fence will inevitably lead to a border and evacuation of the settlements on the wrong side of the fence. Well, they're right - but for the most part that's a good thing.

Finally, the Jerusalem Post has the most trenchant criticism in comparing the building of the fence to the withdrawal from Lebanon.

The "wait and hurry up" syndrome is rearing its head again concerning the building of a separation fence. Like the withdrawal from Lebanon, there is a wide consensus that it should be done. But like that withdrawal, the rushed implementation could cause serious and lasting damage.

The Post has it right - the fence needs to be placed east of the Green Line, encompasing the settlement blocs necessary for a more secure border. At the same time, Israel can state its clear intention to transfer the lands east of the fence to a future Palestinian state. In effect, the current government plan, placing the fence close to the Green Line and trying to diminish its political aspects, sends precisely the wrong message. To Palestinian radicals it sends the message that violence can drive Israel to a unilateral retreat to the '67 borders without any significant Palestinian concessions. To Palestinian moderates and the wider world, it sends the message that Israel is not committed to evacuating isolated settlements necessary for a workable long-term solution. A fence east of the Green Line, with a clear political message sends the right message. Palestinian violence has a cost - the lands between the fence and the Green Line have gone off the table - but Palestinian cooperation can have a clear reward - a viable Palestinian State.

SUPPORT THE INTERNATIONAL ZIONIST CONSPIRACY - BUY A LATTE

It appears that Starbucks has become Enemy Number One in a new Arab effort to boycott American goods, because of its chief executive's "pro-Zionist sentiments." Surprisingly, the Arab activists made no mention of the connection between Starbucks and the nefarious Dr. Evil. Other goods to be shunned by haters of America and Jews: Nestle, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Burger King. So, go ahead - get an Iced Moccachino - and feel proud about it. Or for you coffee-haters out there, try my favorite, the Venti Soy Iced Chai !!!

LESSONS FROM THE OSLO CATASTROPHE

Last week, Charles Krauthammer gave a brilliant speech, condemning the secular messianism that led to the Oslo agreement. From Krauthammer's perspective, Oslo was doomed from the start - and in retrospect the selection of Arafat as peace partner seems to have been fatal. But, as Saul Singer points out in this incisive column, whatever chance Oslo had of succeeding was doomed by the Peace Camp's messianic attitude towards its implementation.

If the Labor Party not just Oslo's critics had cried foul when Yasser Arafat started smuggling terrorists and weaponry in his car, when he failed to curb incitement, and when he failed to lift a finger against Hamas, the situation could be different. It was Oslo's defenders who howled that Binyamin Netanyahu was killing the agreement by demanding "reciprocity" also known as implementation. Those who really doomed Oslo were not its opponents but its champions. Like those who let Germany violate the Versailles Treaty out of laziness or misplaced magnanimity, Oslo's defenders invited war, not peace.

This is a lesson we will need for the future, whenever we end up attempting further peace agreements. The underlying fallacy that beguiled those behind Oslo was that peace is produced by fulfilling perceived Arab grievances. Oslo's proponents believed fervently that the Arab desire to destroy Israel either was no longer meaningful or could be slaked. The peace processors are fond of saying, in response to Arab intransigence, that peace is made with enemies, not with friends. But in the case of other sworn enemies, such as France and Germany, peace was made possible by the utter defeat and transformation of the aggressive party. The insanity of Oslo was not so much that it attempted to make peace without such a transformation, but that there was not any vigilance to make sure such a transformation was taking place.

The best hope for peace with the Muslim world is a transformation of its most radical states, Iran and Iraq, into pro-Western democracies. Now that the United States has realized that such a transformation may be required for its security, it is hardly unthinkable. Israel need not wait until then to pursue peace, but cannot repeat the mistake of assuming that Israeli concessions can take the place of making Arab regimes accountable to their own people.

While most Israelis have been cured of this mistake, the view that Israeli concessions are the critical element to an Arab-Israeli peace maintains a stubborn hold over the mindset of Europeans, the State Department and the liberal elite. Until they change their position, they will continue to be obstruct rather than aid the achievement of a real peace in the Middle East.

A MANDATE, NOT A STATE

The latest nonsense passing for diplomatic initiative in the Middle East is Powell's call for a "provisional" Palestinian state. The plan would be to create a Palestinan state on what the Palestinians currently have jurisdiction over, and later work out the messy issues of borders and refugees. Not surprisingly, the plan has received a warm backing from Shimon Peres.

The only positive thing I can say for the plan is that it 1) provides the Arabs with a fig leaf so they can pretend to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq; and 2) it provides Israel with political cover to begin withdrawing the most isolated settlements (especially in Gaza).

The cons are obvious. First, there has not been real reform of the Palestinian Authority - meaning that the "state" will do just as poor a job of delivering social welfare as the dysfunctional PA. Second, the plan is completely unrealistic on the issue of security. Sending George Tenet over for a couple of days is not going to transform Arafat's mulitple terrorist bands into a reliable anti-terrorist police force. The third is that even a "provisional" statehood could be seen as a validation of the 2nd Intifada. There is no reason whatsoever to think that the Palestinians would not turn back to violence as a negotiating tool over the critical issues.

The idea that the Palestinians are ready and able to rule themselves and act as a responsible member of the international community at the current time is simply delusional. What's need is not a provisional Palestinian state, but a provisional mandate in which the Palestinian territories are policed and administered by reliable parties (Jordan is still the best bet here) while the necessary infrastructure for a functional Palestinian state can be constructed. The Palestinians quite simply are not ready to accept this, despite the long-term benefits that await them. Its still unclear what short of an Israeli reoccupation will convince of the need to make the necesary compromises for a lasting peace.