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