Winters-- Hadash and Balad want equality inside the green line, alongside a Palestinian state. Most Palestinian citizens consider themselves both Palestinians and Arabs, as do other Palestinians. I think the Fatah documents (and the Fatah and PLO positions evolved over the 1960s and 1970s) are important because we're returning, probably, to a non-partition discourse and that's what the PLO was arguing before it embraced partition. I never said Fatah in the 1970s or Barghouti supported binationalism, as I do. But equality and binationalism (which is about recognizing national rights) aren't the same thing. Your presence in the conversations is important. I'm glad you prod me, and others. But also make sure you're listening to the Palestinians in our midst. They probably have a more intimate understanding of these questions of political culture than either of us do. I may invite Ahmad Khalidi back one of these weeks since he has an encyclopedic understanding of the history of Palestinian political thought
Thank you, Peter, I'm enjoying the discourse as well.
I'm not disputing that Fatah and Barghouti want equality. Like I said before, I'm disputing they want equality in the form of a secular one-state that has no ethnic character with equal rights for all. They want equality because it will give them the democratic majority, which they will then use to make Israel like Palestine is today, an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law as the basis for its laws. I trust I don't need to quote the Palestinian Constitution to back up that last point. I believe Fatah at least thinks like Erdogan, who famously said that democracy is like a train, you ride it to where you want to go and then you get off.
I am listening to the Palestinians, the ones polled by the PCRS. Not BDS, who isn't elected by anyone, and Fatah, who hasn't won an election in over a decade.
I'm not saying the state must be culturally neutral. To the contrary, as a binational state I think Israel-Palestine should publicly express both cultures--for instance by requiring Hebrew and Arabic in schools and on street signs and allowing different communities to run schools according to their religious calendars. What I object to is Israel giving Jews political and civil rights that Palestinians lack--and overcoming that requires a revolution in the character of the state since right now its deep structure, for instance as expressed in its allocation of land through the Jewish National Fund's role in the Israel Land Authority, is based on Jewish supremacy.
Then argue against the JNF, the Nation-state law and other discriminatory policies. There is no need to dissolve Israel. You know very well that in a binational state the majority calls the shots. No wonder you find strong secessionist movements in Quebec, Scotland or Catalonia (there is no separatist movement in English Canada, England, or among Castillans).
The far-left’s obsession with dismantling Israel is all the more puzzling, as a confederation with a joint foreign policy (unlike A Land for All, Rivlin calls for a confederal solution with a joint foreign policy) has all the trappings of a federal state. The only difference is that the member states of the confederation remain sovereign and retain veto power over joint institutions. You seem to be stuck in the zero-sum logic that is perpetuating the conflict. There can be a quasi Israeli-Palestinian state on top of an Israeli and a Palestinian state.
I think the real problem is that you do not accept the legitimacy of Zionism as a political (not a cultural) endeavor. Tony Judt once argued wrongfully that Zionism was an anachronism. I beg to differ. The anti-Zionist frenzy that is sweeping the Western left since the late 1960s is one the greatest examples of anachronism. You guys fail to understand that the creation of Israel was a necessity, as you transpose into the past today’s reality (Jews are no longer in danger). Let me remind you that in the late 1940s the world was still divided between countries that persecuted Jews and those who refused to welcome them. It was impossible to predict back then that antisemitism would recede so much in the second part of the 20th Century (most people thought that diaspora Jews were likely to remained oppressed for a very long time). The claim that a Jewish state should have been established in Germany too is anachronistic, as the Israeli society existed way before WW2.
Isaac Deutscher once compared this conflict to a man jumping from a building that caught fire and injures a passerby. Your friends on the far-left believe that Jews should have remained in the blaze in the name of "Justice" and "anti-colonialism". The Israeli right believes that the Palestinians had no right to be on this side of the street to begin with.
The dwindling Israeli peace camp and a handful of Palestinian liberals (most Palestinian intellectuals are more extremist than average Palestinians) see this conflict as a clash of rights which can be resolved with enough creativity. Dismantling Israel is not a creative idea.
I’m pretty sure that had Jews remained persecuted very few people on the left would have doubted the legitimacy of political Zionism and you would be writing your articles from Israel!
A 1SS does not require simple majority rule, so yours is not a fatal criticism of it.
The first thing one imagines Israel would do in the very hypothetical process of implementing the Beinart solution, before handing out voting ballots from river to the sea, would be to finally write a Constitution and establish some kind of separation of powers and guaranteed protections for minorities.
In light of current events, all that seems like a good idea in the not-so hypothetical world as well.
Paul, remind all of us, how much does the current government of Palestine respect the rule of the law and the guidelines laid out in its current Constitution? A Constitution, I remind you, that explicitly states that Palestine is an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law as the basis for its legal system. When was the last election, again? What year of his elected term is Mahmoud Abbas on? Because the Constitution of Palestine explicitly states "Article 36: The term of the presidency of the National Authority shall be four years. The President shall have the right to nominate himself for a second term of presidency, provided that he shall not occupy the position of the presidency more than two consecutive terms." Abbas has occupied the position of the presidency since 2005. You do the math to figure out how many consecutive terms it is. I'll give you a hint, it's more than two.
What guarantees can you offer to the Jews, women, and gay people of Israel that their rights and lives will be respected under a Palestinian Arab majority that we know from polling wants to live in an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law and that we know from history doesn't take the rule of law particularly seriously?
The Palestinians have a ratified constitution? That’s news to me.
The shelf-life of the PA was supposed to be about 5 years. That we’re 25 years beyond that only speaks to how dead the 2SS that created it is.
Bark up that tree about how corrupt and autocratic Abbas is all you want, you can rest assured that he and the PA will be gone for good soon enough.
But one presumes under a nascent 1SS, there would be a Hamas party (or remnant of it), a Fatah party, a PIJ party, as well as the assortment of moderate Arab and centrist and right-wing Jewish parties. All would get some sort of say in ratifying a binational constitution.
I have no doubt that all your objections against reactionary Islamism will find strong representation in this new democracy.
Yes, the Palestinians have a ratified constitution. Look it up, it's a fascinated document. 2003.
Paul, since you're probably not familiar with this either, let me tell you about the Hamas-Fatah civil war. In 2006, Hamas won the legislative election. The two sides refused to share power and the conflict escalated. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007 and forced out all Fatah officials. Then according to Wikipedia, "President Abbas, on 14 June, declared a state of emergency, and dismissed Haniyeh's national unity government and appointed an emergency government and suspended articles of the Basic Law, to circumvent the needed PNC approval." Ever since then, Gaza has been ruled by the Hamas dictatorship, and the West Bank has been ruled by the Fatah dictatorship.
One "presumes" that the EXACT SAME THING will happen in a 1SS. One party or coalition will win the election, another party will refuse to accept defeat, armed conflict will break out, the Constitution will be "suspended", and the country will break apart.
There's no "representation" in Palestine. There will be no "representation" or "democracy" in a 1SS. If you disagree, offer some actual proof and evidence rather than presumptions and predictions.
Kohn’s dichotomy opposing ethnic and civic nationalism has been rejected or criticized by most scholars of nationalism since the 1990s. The truth of the matter is that no state in the world is culturally neutral and based exclusively on abstract values. Even the US (the so-called archetype of civic nationalism) is not culturally neutral (most American states have proclaimed English as their sole official language in the 1980s and 90s while the proportion of Hispanics in the country was soaring). In 1992, Rogers Brubaker argued that "ethnonationalism" has become a catchword whose main function was to deligitimize the national aspirations of a competing national movement.
Israel has the right to privilege Jewish culture and Jewish immigration but it has no right to give its Jewish citizens more civil or political rights than its non-Jewish citizens (Alex Yakobson whose work Peter Beinart is familiar with has written extensively about this).
Israel can be a state both of the Jewish people and all its citizens. But just like Netanyahu, Beinart believe that Jewish identity is incompatible with democracy. Netanyahu wants to do away with democracy, while Beinart wants to get rid of Israel’s Jewishness.
There is another way: two states united in a confederal framework (which would also largely solve the refugee issue, as the border would remain open). If Beinart wants to call such a solution "ethnonationalism", so be it. Arguing that in a world of nation-states, only Jewish statehood is "supremacist" is really troubling.
Like Maoism and Trotskyism, radical anti-Zionism (which is one the last remnant of communism, alongside pro-Putin "anti-imperialism") won’t age well.
The American Civil War started out as a struggle to maintain the Union, but as time went on reality set in and it became inescapable that it was actually a struggle against slavery. I hope reality will set in soon in Israel. Which way, Israel? Religious exclusion or true democracy?
Peter claims here that Palestinians "have a deep inherent interest in gaining political equality," but as always he fails to mention that for Palestinians, "political equality" isn't enough by a long shot. Just because the pro-Palestinian propagandists with whom he spends his time bang on about "political equality" endless doesn't mean the Palestinian people feel the same way.
As I have mentioned numerous times, Palestinian polls have consistently shown the overwhelming majority of Palestinians oppose a "one state solution with equal rights." The Palestinians also oppose equal rights for gays, women, and dissidents within their own society, and giving them a democratic majority over their most hated enemies will not magically change their minds about those groups. Palestinian propagandists have an interest in pushing for "equality" within Israel only because it would result in the Palestinians gaining more power, and it's the power they want, not the equality.
Until Peter is able to come up with an actual argument in response to this point, which as far as I know he never has, he needs to stop bringing up the idea of the one state solution. It's speaking to his intellectual honesty that he cannot respond to this point and can only ignore it.
I may invite Shikaki--who is the pollster I imagine you're relying on-- back for another interview. (He's only interviewing in W Bank and Gaza, remember, not among Palestinian diaspora or Palestinian citizens). I think the dominance for last several decades of two state discourse has had an impact on Palestinian public opinion, at least in occupied territories, especially among older Palestinians. But it's worth remembering this: First, the major Palestinian parties in Israel: Hadash, Balad, Tal, (Ra'am is more complicated because it accepts a Jewish state on pragmatic grounds-- not because it believes in the moral legitimacy of one-- and has an Islamist character) all support equality. Secondly, if you look at Fatah's documents before it began moving toward two states it supported a secular democratic Palestine with equal rights for people of all religions. (Though not a binational state, which it associated group rights a la Lebanon). Look at Fatah's 1970 document, "Toward a Democratic State in Palestine," for instance. Equality in one state is also the position of the most prominent leaders of the BDS movement, the most important initiative of Palestinian civil society of the last two decades. The BDS call fudges on 1 state/2 states but calls for equality inside the green line and Omar Barghouti's book, One Country, is an explicit vision of equality, on the South Africa model, in one country. So I think that while there are clearly different streams in Palestinian thinking: Islamist, nationalist, leftist (as there are in Jewish thinking), equality has a stronger basis of support than you imagine. There's certainly more Palestinian support for equality in one state than there is among Jewish Israelis.
Peter, thank you very much for your thoughts. Your argument continues to be extreme naive and unconvincing.
I am basing my statements on the research of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, yes.
I don't see how the feelings of Arab parties in Israel are relevant, the vast majority of Israeli Arabs do not consider themselves Palestinians and are not reflective in any way of how Palestinians in general feel. Even if every Israeli Arab felt the same, which they clearly do not, they would only be one seventh of the Palestinian population. By the way, Hadash and Ta'al both support the two state solution, so they agree with me, not you.
Second, I have looked at Fatah's documents. Their original charter calls for the "eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence", and since Palestine and its supporters have made "Zionist" equivalent to "Jewish", that phrase is a bit concerning. I also don't see how Fatah's views from 50 years ago are relevant at all today, they publish one document from 50 years ago and that's supposed to be indicative of how Palestinians in general feel today? Seriously?
As for BDS, no one elected them either, and certainly no one elected the leadership. Norman Finkelstein said the Palestinians don't support BDS. Omar Barghouti said, who you referenced as a source and as you know since you know so much about him, that he's flatly opposed to binationalism. Who should I believe, you or him? Could he possibly be lying in his public facing book?
You have identified three groups, none of which were elected by a Palestinian majority or represent the Palestinians as a whole. I'm going to continue to believe what the Palestinians themselves are being polled until actually proven otherwise.
Yes, I'm sure Palestinians want equality, because they can use that equality as a democratic majority to make Israel like Palestine is, an Arab Muslim state run by shar'ia law. That's what Fatah wants, today, not 50+ years ago. That's what Hamas wants. And I know you can't prove otherwise.
I'm not sure why Beinart and his cronies have such a hard time understanding this, but let me say it again: The Palestinians are ENEMIES of Israel, ENEMIES of Israelis, ENEMIES of Zionism, and have demonstrated their bonafides for it in the blood of Israeli children for almost a century. Of course a movement that is about reforming the Israeli government isn't going to bring them in! They're not stupid. It would be like if the Women's March started marching alongside Al Qaeda because they both are opposed to the Trump Administration. The right wing in Israel already casts those who disagree with them as traitors, if the protesters did what Beinart suggested they would be doing Netanyahu a huge favor.
Just because Beinart is allegedly opposed to "ethnonationalism" (except in Ukraine, strangely, I guess he's just a Ukrainian supremacist) doesn't mean the Israelis are and it certainly doesn't mean the Palestinians are. They both actually live in this neighborhood and understand how it works. Beinart should just butt out and go back to his ivory tower. Nobody asked him.
I'm not sure why Anonymous and his cronies have such a hard time understanding this, but let me say it again: Israel is a racist, apartheid state, which holds millions of Palestinians under a brutal military occupation.
IN COLD BLOOD.
A UN inquiry found that in the context of the large Gaza protests of 2018, Israeli snipers shot 6,016 protestors with live ammunition, targeting 4,903 in the lower limbs, leaving many of them permanently disabled, & killing 189.
I guess Peter saw the light, and was man enough to make the change from advocating for the oppressor to supporting the oppressed. There’s hope for you yet, Winters. “There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in.”
Yeah, I remember this Haaretz article from 2020 on the Gaza protests with testimonials from IDF snipers who basically used the protestors, including one mention about a 12yo boy, as human target practice. By the thousands, in aggregate, over a two year period.
They’d blow out one of the knees which was a difficult but satisfying shot for a sniper, never in any real threat of harm or duress, and brag to each other about who got more knees that day. One solder says he missed the limb and killed someone standing behind the target, but didn’t feel bad about it or face consequences. All in an honest days work.
All protestors were equally considered terrorists, in the view described, be they nonviolent protest leaders, tire-burners, or Molotov cocktail tossers though not everyone was a target. Of course a blown-out knee would be a lifetime disability in Gaza, which has terrible healthcare and already has over 40% unemployment. But heh, all worth it for the shits and giggles for the soldiers. This is what permanent occupation and effectively absolute power and impunity does to the soul of the occupier.
The article then goes into describe the rules of engagement required by the soldiers on the Gaza fence before shooting.
I thought of that article and IDF rules structure described after the recent Abu Akleh killing in the West Bank. It stands to reason that the IDF would have authorized that Al Jazeera reporter killing pretty far up the chain of command immediately before the shots were fired. One expects that the PM had all the details of the incident within hours afterwards. Every official statement in the days and weeks that followed was all spin and lies. It was very unlikely a fluke event or fog-of-war accident.
In Yugoslavia, multiple competing ethnicities were herded together, with tensions always simmering below the surface. Eventually, the region descended into a series of devastating ethnic conflicts and significant loss of life.
In the Israeli-Palestinian context, for 75 years, the Palestinians have rejected Israel, resorted to horrific terrorism against Israeli civilians, and continue to teach antisemitism in schools. They have never shown any inclination toward living in peace with Israelis or Jews.
Peter, stop indulging in futile idealism. Pressure Palestinian leaders to accept having their own country, living in peace with Israel, respecting borders, and acknowledging that the only "right of return" is to their own new state of Palestine, not Israel.
I found Peter's commentary on the Israeli Judicial Crisis a compelling message, applicable to the overall issues around Palestinian rights in a world where ethno-nationalism seems prevalent with both liberals and conservatives....His question though is a moral one: regardless of one's religious orientation, what is the underlying principle that should guide our lives? Equality, respect, protection of the vulnerable, whose numbers are growing... Harkens back to Spinoza (got him in trouble too, good trouble!). His vision is one of absolute moral clarity, as prophetic as it is difficult to achieve. We cannot look away from what we see is unfolding, both in Israel and the US, where authoritarianism is challenging rights thought inviolable, except when they are not, and where the dominant thought is 'who cares as long as our rights are protected?'
Thank-you Peter for giving us a taste of sanity in a world hard to comprehend in our daily life....
What is working now is the fear of Israelis serving as reservists in the army, esp. pilots and others, from Hague court arrests. They remove themselves openly from active service and training, and this is the most effective protest that Netanyahu fears the most.
Jewish supremacy is what we all are. In Hebrew, we say “haval al ha-sman” (waste of time). You are getting to the core of the problem. I see no hope. It is a sad day in Jewish history.
If only...but what could possibly make this happen? After all, the court that liberal Isrealis are fighting so passionately to preserve has done little to advance the cause of Palestinians! What could broaden the perspective of the protesters?
Excellent commentary. But I fear the rot is too deep in Israel and among Israel’s most ardent and powerful supporters in America for your vision to be realized. Israel was founded as an ethno-nationalist state. I believe it will remain that to the bitter end.
One of the many tragedies of ethno-nationalism is that all too soon climate change will destroy human civilization as we have known it. If most people were able to recognize that and let go of their ancient fears and hatreds in order to concentrate on the overwhelming threat we all face, perhaps there might be some chance of saving ourselves. But it appears that is beyond the capacity of most people. Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and parallel destruction in Gaza goes on.
Winters-- Hadash and Balad want equality inside the green line, alongside a Palestinian state. Most Palestinian citizens consider themselves both Palestinians and Arabs, as do other Palestinians. I think the Fatah documents (and the Fatah and PLO positions evolved over the 1960s and 1970s) are important because we're returning, probably, to a non-partition discourse and that's what the PLO was arguing before it embraced partition. I never said Fatah in the 1970s or Barghouti supported binationalism, as I do. But equality and binationalism (which is about recognizing national rights) aren't the same thing. Your presence in the conversations is important. I'm glad you prod me, and others. But also make sure you're listening to the Palestinians in our midst. They probably have a more intimate understanding of these questions of political culture than either of us do. I may invite Ahmad Khalidi back one of these weeks since he has an encyclopedic understanding of the history of Palestinian political thought
Thank you, Peter, I'm enjoying the discourse as well.
I'm not disputing that Fatah and Barghouti want equality. Like I said before, I'm disputing they want equality in the form of a secular one-state that has no ethnic character with equal rights for all. They want equality because it will give them the democratic majority, which they will then use to make Israel like Palestine is today, an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law as the basis for its laws. I trust I don't need to quote the Palestinian Constitution to back up that last point. I believe Fatah at least thinks like Erdogan, who famously said that democracy is like a train, you ride it to where you want to go and then you get off.
I am listening to the Palestinians, the ones polled by the PCRS. Not BDS, who isn't elected by anyone, and Fatah, who hasn't won an election in over a decade.
I'm not saying the state must be culturally neutral. To the contrary, as a binational state I think Israel-Palestine should publicly express both cultures--for instance by requiring Hebrew and Arabic in schools and on street signs and allowing different communities to run schools according to their religious calendars. What I object to is Israel giving Jews political and civil rights that Palestinians lack--and overcoming that requires a revolution in the character of the state since right now its deep structure, for instance as expressed in its allocation of land through the Jewish National Fund's role in the Israel Land Authority, is based on Jewish supremacy.
Then argue against the JNF, the Nation-state law and other discriminatory policies. There is no need to dissolve Israel. You know very well that in a binational state the majority calls the shots. No wonder you find strong secessionist movements in Quebec, Scotland or Catalonia (there is no separatist movement in English Canada, England, or among Castillans).
The far-left’s obsession with dismantling Israel is all the more puzzling, as a confederation with a joint foreign policy (unlike A Land for All, Rivlin calls for a confederal solution with a joint foreign policy) has all the trappings of a federal state. The only difference is that the member states of the confederation remain sovereign and retain veto power over joint institutions. You seem to be stuck in the zero-sum logic that is perpetuating the conflict. There can be a quasi Israeli-Palestinian state on top of an Israeli and a Palestinian state.
I think the real problem is that you do not accept the legitimacy of Zionism as a political (not a cultural) endeavor. Tony Judt once argued wrongfully that Zionism was an anachronism. I beg to differ. The anti-Zionist frenzy that is sweeping the Western left since the late 1960s is one the greatest examples of anachronism. You guys fail to understand that the creation of Israel was a necessity, as you transpose into the past today’s reality (Jews are no longer in danger). Let me remind you that in the late 1940s the world was still divided between countries that persecuted Jews and those who refused to welcome them. It was impossible to predict back then that antisemitism would recede so much in the second part of the 20th Century (most people thought that diaspora Jews were likely to remained oppressed for a very long time). The claim that a Jewish state should have been established in Germany too is anachronistic, as the Israeli society existed way before WW2.
Isaac Deutscher once compared this conflict to a man jumping from a building that caught fire and injures a passerby. Your friends on the far-left believe that Jews should have remained in the blaze in the name of "Justice" and "anti-colonialism". The Israeli right believes that the Palestinians had no right to be on this side of the street to begin with.
The dwindling Israeli peace camp and a handful of Palestinian liberals (most Palestinian intellectuals are more extremist than average Palestinians) see this conflict as a clash of rights which can be resolved with enough creativity. Dismantling Israel is not a creative idea.
I’m pretty sure that had Jews remained persecuted very few people on the left would have doubted the legitimacy of political Zionism and you would be writing your articles from Israel!
And how would you "require" those things when a Palestinian democratic majority runs the country?
A 1SS does not require simple majority rule, so yours is not a fatal criticism of it.
The first thing one imagines Israel would do in the very hypothetical process of implementing the Beinart solution, before handing out voting ballots from river to the sea, would be to finally write a Constitution and establish some kind of separation of powers and guaranteed protections for minorities.
In light of current events, all that seems like a good idea in the not-so hypothetical world as well.
Paul, remind all of us, how much does the current government of Palestine respect the rule of the law and the guidelines laid out in its current Constitution? A Constitution, I remind you, that explicitly states that Palestine is an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law as the basis for its legal system. When was the last election, again? What year of his elected term is Mahmoud Abbas on? Because the Constitution of Palestine explicitly states "Article 36: The term of the presidency of the National Authority shall be four years. The President shall have the right to nominate himself for a second term of presidency, provided that he shall not occupy the position of the presidency more than two consecutive terms." Abbas has occupied the position of the presidency since 2005. You do the math to figure out how many consecutive terms it is. I'll give you a hint, it's more than two.
What guarantees can you offer to the Jews, women, and gay people of Israel that their rights and lives will be respected under a Palestinian Arab majority that we know from polling wants to live in an Arab Muslim state with shar'ia law and that we know from history doesn't take the rule of law particularly seriously?
The Palestinians have a ratified constitution? That’s news to me.
The shelf-life of the PA was supposed to be about 5 years. That we’re 25 years beyond that only speaks to how dead the 2SS that created it is.
Bark up that tree about how corrupt and autocratic Abbas is all you want, you can rest assured that he and the PA will be gone for good soon enough.
But one presumes under a nascent 1SS, there would be a Hamas party (or remnant of it), a Fatah party, a PIJ party, as well as the assortment of moderate Arab and centrist and right-wing Jewish parties. All would get some sort of say in ratifying a binational constitution.
I have no doubt that all your objections against reactionary Islamism will find strong representation in this new democracy.
Yes, the Palestinians have a ratified constitution. Look it up, it's a fascinated document. 2003.
Paul, since you're probably not familiar with this either, let me tell you about the Hamas-Fatah civil war. In 2006, Hamas won the legislative election. The two sides refused to share power and the conflict escalated. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007 and forced out all Fatah officials. Then according to Wikipedia, "President Abbas, on 14 June, declared a state of emergency, and dismissed Haniyeh's national unity government and appointed an emergency government and suspended articles of the Basic Law, to circumvent the needed PNC approval." Ever since then, Gaza has been ruled by the Hamas dictatorship, and the West Bank has been ruled by the Fatah dictatorship.
One "presumes" that the EXACT SAME THING will happen in a 1SS. One party or coalition will win the election, another party will refuse to accept defeat, armed conflict will break out, the Constitution will be "suspended", and the country will break apart.
There's no "representation" in Palestine. There will be no "representation" or "democracy" in a 1SS. If you disagree, offer some actual proof and evidence rather than presumptions and predictions.
Doesn’t Abbas report to Israel? Any questions about so called elections in the West Bank should be directed to Netanyahu, not Paul Reichardt.
Quiet, Sean. The adults are talking.
I doubt Winters, that you’ll make the Jerusalem Post’s 50 most influential Jews anytime soon, but work a little harder and you never know.
Kohn’s dichotomy opposing ethnic and civic nationalism has been rejected or criticized by most scholars of nationalism since the 1990s. The truth of the matter is that no state in the world is culturally neutral and based exclusively on abstract values. Even the US (the so-called archetype of civic nationalism) is not culturally neutral (most American states have proclaimed English as their sole official language in the 1980s and 90s while the proportion of Hispanics in the country was soaring). In 1992, Rogers Brubaker argued that "ethnonationalism" has become a catchword whose main function was to deligitimize the national aspirations of a competing national movement.
Israel has the right to privilege Jewish culture and Jewish immigration but it has no right to give its Jewish citizens more civil or political rights than its non-Jewish citizens (Alex Yakobson whose work Peter Beinart is familiar with has written extensively about this).
Israel can be a state both of the Jewish people and all its citizens. But just like Netanyahu, Beinart believe that Jewish identity is incompatible with democracy. Netanyahu wants to do away with democracy, while Beinart wants to get rid of Israel’s Jewishness.
There is another way: two states united in a confederal framework (which would also largely solve the refugee issue, as the border would remain open). If Beinart wants to call such a solution "ethnonationalism", so be it. Arguing that in a world of nation-states, only Jewish statehood is "supremacist" is really troubling.
Like Maoism and Trotskyism, radical anti-Zionism (which is one the last remnant of communism, alongside pro-Putin "anti-imperialism") won’t age well.
Well done, Peter.
The American Civil War started out as a struggle to maintain the Union, but as time went on reality set in and it became inescapable that it was actually a struggle against slavery. I hope reality will set in soon in Israel. Which way, Israel? Religious exclusion or true democracy?
Peter claims here that Palestinians "have a deep inherent interest in gaining political equality," but as always he fails to mention that for Palestinians, "political equality" isn't enough by a long shot. Just because the pro-Palestinian propagandists with whom he spends his time bang on about "political equality" endless doesn't mean the Palestinian people feel the same way.
As I have mentioned numerous times, Palestinian polls have consistently shown the overwhelming majority of Palestinians oppose a "one state solution with equal rights." The Palestinians also oppose equal rights for gays, women, and dissidents within their own society, and giving them a democratic majority over their most hated enemies will not magically change their minds about those groups. Palestinian propagandists have an interest in pushing for "equality" within Israel only because it would result in the Palestinians gaining more power, and it's the power they want, not the equality.
Until Peter is able to come up with an actual argument in response to this point, which as far as I know he never has, he needs to stop bringing up the idea of the one state solution. It's speaking to his intellectual honesty that he cannot respond to this point and can only ignore it.
I may invite Shikaki--who is the pollster I imagine you're relying on-- back for another interview. (He's only interviewing in W Bank and Gaza, remember, not among Palestinian diaspora or Palestinian citizens). I think the dominance for last several decades of two state discourse has had an impact on Palestinian public opinion, at least in occupied territories, especially among older Palestinians. But it's worth remembering this: First, the major Palestinian parties in Israel: Hadash, Balad, Tal, (Ra'am is more complicated because it accepts a Jewish state on pragmatic grounds-- not because it believes in the moral legitimacy of one-- and has an Islamist character) all support equality. Secondly, if you look at Fatah's documents before it began moving toward two states it supported a secular democratic Palestine with equal rights for people of all religions. (Though not a binational state, which it associated group rights a la Lebanon). Look at Fatah's 1970 document, "Toward a Democratic State in Palestine," for instance. Equality in one state is also the position of the most prominent leaders of the BDS movement, the most important initiative of Palestinian civil society of the last two decades. The BDS call fudges on 1 state/2 states but calls for equality inside the green line and Omar Barghouti's book, One Country, is an explicit vision of equality, on the South Africa model, in one country. So I think that while there are clearly different streams in Palestinian thinking: Islamist, nationalist, leftist (as there are in Jewish thinking), equality has a stronger basis of support than you imagine. There's certainly more Palestinian support for equality in one state than there is among Jewish Israelis.
Peter, thank you very much for your thoughts. Your argument continues to be extreme naive and unconvincing.
I am basing my statements on the research of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, yes.
I don't see how the feelings of Arab parties in Israel are relevant, the vast majority of Israeli Arabs do not consider themselves Palestinians and are not reflective in any way of how Palestinians in general feel. Even if every Israeli Arab felt the same, which they clearly do not, they would only be one seventh of the Palestinian population. By the way, Hadash and Ta'al both support the two state solution, so they agree with me, not you.
Second, I have looked at Fatah's documents. Their original charter calls for the "eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence", and since Palestine and its supporters have made "Zionist" equivalent to "Jewish", that phrase is a bit concerning. I also don't see how Fatah's views from 50 years ago are relevant at all today, they publish one document from 50 years ago and that's supposed to be indicative of how Palestinians in general feel today? Seriously?
As for BDS, no one elected them either, and certainly no one elected the leadership. Norman Finkelstein said the Palestinians don't support BDS. Omar Barghouti said, who you referenced as a source and as you know since you know so much about him, that he's flatly opposed to binationalism. Who should I believe, you or him? Could he possibly be lying in his public facing book?
Read this link, Omar and company clearly state they don't want binationalism: http://www.stopbds.com/?page_id=48
You have identified three groups, none of which were elected by a Palestinian majority or represent the Palestinians as a whole. I'm going to continue to believe what the Palestinians themselves are being polled until actually proven otherwise.
Yes, I'm sure Palestinians want equality, because they can use that equality as a democratic majority to make Israel like Palestine is, an Arab Muslim state run by shar'ia law. That's what Fatah wants, today, not 50+ years ago. That's what Hamas wants. And I know you can't prove otherwise.
I'm not sure why Beinart and his cronies have such a hard time understanding this, but let me say it again: The Palestinians are ENEMIES of Israel, ENEMIES of Israelis, ENEMIES of Zionism, and have demonstrated their bonafides for it in the blood of Israeli children for almost a century. Of course a movement that is about reforming the Israeli government isn't going to bring them in! They're not stupid. It would be like if the Women's March started marching alongside Al Qaeda because they both are opposed to the Trump Administration. The right wing in Israel already casts those who disagree with them as traitors, if the protesters did what Beinart suggested they would be doing Netanyahu a huge favor.
Just because Beinart is allegedly opposed to "ethnonationalism" (except in Ukraine, strangely, I guess he's just a Ukrainian supremacist) doesn't mean the Israelis are and it certainly doesn't mean the Palestinians are. They both actually live in this neighborhood and understand how it works. Beinart should just butt out and go back to his ivory tower. Nobody asked him.
I'm not sure why Anonymous and his cronies have such a hard time understanding this, but let me say it again: Israel is a racist, apartheid state, which holds millions of Palestinians under a brutal military occupation.
IN COLD BLOOD.
A UN inquiry found that in the context of the large Gaza protests of 2018, Israeli snipers shot 6,016 protestors with live ammunition, targeting 4,903 in the lower limbs, leaving many of them permanently disabled, & killing 189.
https://t.co/bj2D5nfeje
Get your own material, troll.
Why Israel Is Not an Apartheid State by Peter Beinart.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state
Take it up with Papa Petey, Sean.
I guess Peter saw the light, and was man enough to make the change from advocating for the oppressor to supporting the oppressed. There’s hope for you yet, Winters. “There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in.”
Saw the light? Are you saying he changed his opinion?
In Peter’s own words.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/israel-annexation-two-state-solution.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Paywalled.
Yeah, I remember this Haaretz article from 2020 on the Gaza protests with testimonials from IDF snipers who basically used the protestors, including one mention about a 12yo boy, as human target practice. By the thousands, in aggregate, over a two year period.
They’d blow out one of the knees which was a difficult but satisfying shot for a sniper, never in any real threat of harm or duress, and brag to each other about who got more knees that day. One solder says he missed the limb and killed someone standing behind the target, but didn’t feel bad about it or face consequences. All in an honest days work.
All protestors were equally considered terrorists, in the view described, be they nonviolent protest leaders, tire-burners, or Molotov cocktail tossers though not everyone was a target. Of course a blown-out knee would be a lifetime disability in Gaza, which has terrible healthcare and already has over 40% unemployment. But heh, all worth it for the shits and giggles for the soldiers. This is what permanent occupation and effectively absolute power and impunity does to the soul of the occupier.
The article then goes into describe the rules of engagement required by the soldiers on the Gaza fence before shooting.
I thought of that article and IDF rules structure described after the recent Abu Akleh killing in the West Bank. It stands to reason that the IDF would have authorized that Al Jazeera reporter killing pretty far up the chain of command immediately before the shots were fired. One expects that the PM had all the details of the incident within hours afterwards. Every official statement in the days and weeks that followed was all spin and lies. It was very unlikely a fluke event or fog-of-war accident.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000
Want a glimpse into Peter's vision for Israel?
In Yugoslavia, multiple competing ethnicities were herded together, with tensions always simmering below the surface. Eventually, the region descended into a series of devastating ethnic conflicts and significant loss of life.
In the Israeli-Palestinian context, for 75 years, the Palestinians have rejected Israel, resorted to horrific terrorism against Israeli civilians, and continue to teach antisemitism in schools. They have never shown any inclination toward living in peace with Israelis or Jews.
Peter, stop indulging in futile idealism. Pressure Palestinian leaders to accept having their own country, living in peace with Israel, respecting borders, and acknowledging that the only "right of return" is to their own new state of Palestine, not Israel.
Then there will be peace.
Peter
As always, your hatred of the Zionist state always blinds you to reality. Israelis will not give up their country no matter what you believe!
God's will prevails, not yours or Peter's or the fascists' that currently control Israel.
I'm not sure. Perhaps desperation. Ayman Odeh and other Palestinian leaders inside Israel have called for this kind of joint struggle
Peter can you please tag the person you're replying to in your reply comments? Because I at least usually don't know and it's confusing.
ok
"Equality or nothing" as Prof. Edward Said so correctly wrote.
23 Arab states, 50 Muslim states, and zero Jewish states isn't equality, Sam.
I found Peter's commentary on the Israeli Judicial Crisis a compelling message, applicable to the overall issues around Palestinian rights in a world where ethno-nationalism seems prevalent with both liberals and conservatives....His question though is a moral one: regardless of one's religious orientation, what is the underlying principle that should guide our lives? Equality, respect, protection of the vulnerable, whose numbers are growing... Harkens back to Spinoza (got him in trouble too, good trouble!). His vision is one of absolute moral clarity, as prophetic as it is difficult to achieve. We cannot look away from what we see is unfolding, both in Israel and the US, where authoritarianism is challenging rights thought inviolable, except when they are not, and where the dominant thought is 'who cares as long as our rights are protected?'
Thank-you Peter for giving us a taste of sanity in a world hard to comprehend in our daily life....
What is working now is the fear of Israelis serving as reservists in the army, esp. pilots and others, from Hague court arrests. They remove themselves openly from active service and training, and this is the most effective protest that Netanyahu fears the most.
Jewish supremacy is what we all are. In Hebrew, we say “haval al ha-sman” (waste of time). You are getting to the core of the problem. I see no hope. It is a sad day in Jewish history.
The haredi population will eventually become the majority by the end of the century. If there is no constitution the region will be in complete chaos.
If only...but what could possibly make this happen? After all, the court that liberal Isrealis are fighting so passionately to preserve has done little to advance the cause of Palestinians! What could broaden the perspective of the protesters?
Excellent commentary. But I fear the rot is too deep in Israel and among Israel’s most ardent and powerful supporters in America for your vision to be realized. Israel was founded as an ethno-nationalist state. I believe it will remain that to the bitter end.
One of the many tragedies of ethno-nationalism is that all too soon climate change will destroy human civilization as we have known it. If most people were able to recognize that and let go of their ancient fears and hatreds in order to concentrate on the overwhelming threat we all face, perhaps there might be some chance of saving ourselves. But it appears that is beyond the capacity of most people. Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and parallel destruction in Gaza goes on.