Our Friday call will be with Rula Jubreal, the talented Palestinian-Italian-American journalist who wrote the film, “Miral.” Rula is one of the most prominent critics of the incoming, neo-fascist government in Italy and will talk about that country’s authoritarian turn.
In addition to M.L. King and N. Mandela, Gandhi also sanctioned violence wherein it is one's duty to defend your country through violent means, if you cannot do it non-violently. By assigning more responsibility to the Israelis for the (cycle of) violence, I do not believe Peter has become part of the problem. Rather, I feel Peter is stating the obvious wherein the moral obligation to break the cycle of violence falls on the stronger/superior power of the two sides engaged in conflict. As D. Tutu wrote: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor"
I usually agree with you, but not this time. As a lifelong pacifist and activist, I do not believe that violence is ever justified except in the immediate defense of life. The equation of injustice and violence is rhetoric in defense of resort to violence, but it is not a reasonable statement in terms of any ethic I could accept. Ukraine's is a war of defense and I agree that they have the moral right to fight that war, but the arguments about MLK and Mandela, not so much. MLK was convinced of the power of nonviolence by Bayard Rustin, a man who has never been justly credited for his role in the Civil Rights movement (in which I was active). Here is a more accurate portrayal of Mandela than his one-time endorsement of violence (and then only against police and soldiers carrying out Apartheid). https://www.ashgrove.cheshire.sch.uk/_site/data/files/year%206/week%2011/9EE2E2604144166BC109F181D49BBD07.pdf I have a very long history of working with Palestinian peace activists (Jewish Peace Fellowship as Chair and since). Indulging in violence has not ever brought Palestinians any justice or any relief from oppression. It becomes the justification of violence and more oppression towards them. For a good model of why nonviolence is called (by us who value it) "a force more powerful," I recommend you look to the history of Leymah Gbowee, perhaps in the film about her "Pray The Devil Back to Hell."
Mr. Beinert, we know a lot of people in common and you may not know who I am, but I am very disappointed in this statement.
You write: "You’re not going to end Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians unless you deal with the problem of the massive violence that Palestinians experience." I'd say: "You’re not going to end the massive violence that Palestinians experience unless you deal with the problem of Palestinian organizations targeting civilians and claiming it's okay to kill Israeli civilians." As long as that is happening, liberals will never support Palestinians in substantive ways. These victims are Jews; and since WW2 it's the mantra of liberals is to protect Jews. You're not helping the Palestinians by making excuses for organizational attacks on civilians.
The sheer lack of knowledge here is breathtaking and it extends from the Professor Beinart down to his minions on this site. So let’s deal with the simple facts should you want to investigate them.
Here are some books to read:
Alexander Scholch – Palestine in Transition 1856-1882
Gershom Shafir- Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict 1882-1914
Neville j Mandel—The Arabs and Zionism Before WWI
David Grossman—Rural Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine
There are others by Ruth Kark for example who paint a more balanced picture of what happened.
To be sure some people who today call themselves Palestinians lived in the land throughout the last 2,000 years; these were Jews who became Christians and who later became Moslems but they were not and are not the dominant Moslem population that survived into the 19th and 20th century.
The facts are that the people who lived there starting in the 19th century are not the people who lived there throughout history. In the main their roots were from Arabia and they came into the land in phases starting in the 11th century and more came in the 17th century.
In the 19th century as a result of the slow rollback of the Ottoman Turks many people from as far away as Crimea, Algeria and Bosnia including some 2 million Circassians were settled in Syria (of which Palestine was a part). Also in the 1830s an Egyptian Army rolled through Palestine and on the way back somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 of the conscripts decided not to return to Egypt and settled in Palestine.
In fact, while the Jews in 19th century managed maybe 20 settlements Moslems managed more than twice as many in the same period. The point I am making here is that at the same time that Jews decided to return to Palestine so did many Moslems from other parts of the Middle East and Ottoman holdings. It was a race that continued until 1948. It is clearly documented if you want to see it. Or you can believe in the false narrative that the Jews disrupted and dislocated the “indigenous” Moslem population—this narrative fails on the demographic facts.
Finally, the notion that you can pay Israelis to leave their country speaks to your own lack of loyalty to your country which of course was stolen from the First Nations. Maybe you would take a million to go back to Eastern Europe (for example) but please don’t confuse your situation with Israel’s.
Dugin was the target, and he is part of the war effort. The Russians made Crimea into a war zone. Anyone crossing into a war zone risks collateral damage. Nice try trying to find radical leftist relativism here.
By the way, this article written by Shlaim displays the worst excesses of what Itamar Rabinovich called the "revisionist" understanding of the collapse of the peace process. At Camp David, the summit ended not because Arafat refused Barak’s final offer but rather because he refused to make a counteroffer. As for the Second Intifada, there is no way of knowing whether or not Arafat started it (his entourage is split, just like Israel’s security establishment), but one thing is sure: he refused to stop it, despite the fact that he knew that the US was about to unveil a peace plan offering the Palestinians close to 100% of the West Bank.
As for Olmert, his "lame-duck" status doesn’t change anything. Abbas too was a lame-duck, as he had no majority in Parliament and he lost control over Gaza in 2007. Anyhow, Olmert wanted to sign an agreement in principle with Abbas and call an election both in Israel and the Palestinian territories, so both peoples could endorse it. This was another missed opportunity.
Finally, Amir Tibon revealed in 2017 that Abbas refused to answer to Obama’s offer in March 2014 (it was confirmed by Kerry in his memoirs). This is what convinced me that the Palestinians were not ready to accept a deal based on the Clinton parameters. I’m pretty sure that if Abbas rejects another peace plan based on the Clinton Parameters, revisionist will find a way to deny it or make excuses to justify it. As I said earlier, religious thinking is not rational…
Aside from the fact that Shlaim has now become a Hamas advocate, he also has become very erratic. No wonder even Tom Segev parted ways with him.
He also rehashes the myth whereby Israel’s response to the Clinton parameters was no more positive than the Palestinian one. Perhaps, he should listen to his friend, Shlomo Ben Ami, who wrote in his latest book that 1) Israel accepted the Clinton parameters with reservations, but these were not categorical rebuttals. In fact, Ben Ami phoned Arafat to reassure him and guarantee that Israel accepted the Clinton parameters without any changes. In addition, during the Taba Summit, Israel went beyond Clinton’s framework demands to strike a deal with the Palestinians (Ben Ami offered 100% of the West Bank to the Palestinians as well as exclusive sovereignty over the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount, provided that this area would also be recognized as a Jewish holy site). The Palestinians were not willing to swap more than 2% of the West Bank (which means that close to 50% of the settlers would have to be uprooted) and insisted on having exclusive sovereignty over the Noble Sanctuary without recognizing the Jewish people’s connection to this site.
The main problem was the refugee issue. Clinton called on Israel to accept part of the blame for the creation of the refugee problem. He also offered the Palestinians a symbolic right of return to "historic Palestine" (which encompasses the whole British Mandate). However, he made it clear that they could only use this right in the future Palestinian state, not in Israel proper.
The Palestinians insisted on full Israeli responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem (this is enough to prevent both parties from reaching an agreement, even if they don’t insist on the implementation of the right of return), as well as a right of return for the refugees to Israel proper. They merely stressed that they would be "flexible" and "creative" in the implementation of the right of return. While they informally mentioned that they only wanted refugees living in Lebanon to be repatriated to Israel, they were not willing to put this down on paper. (The US too promised the USSR that there would be no NATO expansion eastward, but they didn’t sign anything, and ultimately nothing prevented NATO from expanding to Eastern Europe.)
The open-ended terms of the Palestinian Authority’s demands opened a Pandora’s box that would allow them to make further claims in the future. Israel cannot accept to renegotiate the return of new caps of refugees every decade or so (the latest official offer made by the PA in 2008 is the return of 80,000-150,000 refugees over a 10-year period, renewable). In other words, if after this 10-year period, Israel and the Palestinians do not agree on the number of refugees being allowed to return to Israel, the conflict resumes.
I’m not blaming the Palestinians for having rejected the Clinton parameters. However both sides refuse a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. Israelis refuse to go back to the Green Line, while Palestinians want two-states within 1967 borders, but they also want to keep the door open for further claims in the future.
What I’m saying is not controversial anymore. Most Palestinian negotiators have said time and again that Clinton’s framework won’t suffice to achieve a final-status agreement. That’s just fine.
I have no problem with going beyond the Clinton parameters by finding creative ways to implement the right of return without dissolving Israel. A confederal framework can also give both peoples indirect control over the whole land (as decisions takes by joint institutions would apply on both sides of the border).
I part ways with the North American Zionist left and anti-Zionists for two reasons:
1) North American liberal Zionists place the whole blame on Israel for the absence of peace.
2) Anti-Zionism may not be antisemitic but it is totally anachronistic. A Jewish state was a necessity in the late 1940s, as Jews were still persecuted and it was impossible to predict that their fate would improve so much in the second part of the 20th Century. Those who claim that a Jewish state should have been established in Germany fail to understand that the pre-state Israeli society already existed before WW2. No wonder most people on the left supported Israel’s creation in 1947…
There is no doubt that the creation of Israel caused great harm to the Palestinians, but denying that Jews needed a state more than any other people is pointless. Not all conflicts oppose the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other.
Richard Crossman and Reinhold Niebuhr used to say that when it comes to the Arab-Zionist conflict, there was no absolute justice. They saw partition as the "lesser evil" and "relative justice". One can disagree with this claim (I don’t deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian narrative), but the one-dimensional depiction of this conflict made by the left-wing intelligentsia is detrimental to mutual understanding and reconciliation.
With hindsight, it is now clear that Camus’ rejection of extremism was more sensible than Sartre’s knee jerk support for the excesses of Algerian nationalists. Camus too was isolated in the 1950-60s, but history proved him right. Let’s see in 50 years from now who turned out to be right: Amos Oz and Carlo Strenger or Tony Judt and Peter Beinart?!
”Palestinian acts of violence must be contextualized” is sheer nonsense. And no there is no BUT… And incidentally it does not help your cause period end of story. Professor Beinart there is no justification for going after civilian life whether you are oppressed or not. Historically long before Israel had power over the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, attacks were carried out against Jewish civilians. In fact, these acts happened throughout the 20th century.
Palestinians have chosen not to accept a state from the 1920s on if the Jews get one too. And have continued to demand the whole loaf of bread and have proven time and again that sharing is not what they are interested in. Its tiresome to hear how oppressed they are—its their choice to oppress themselves.
Again let’s keep in mind who the leaders are on that side. Gaza is run by an organization whose goal is a theocratic state where Jews are not permitted (they want all Jews dead) and of course women have no rights in such a state. I would argue their existence is oppressive to the people under their thumb.
Let’s talk about the larger context. There is one thing missing in your piece: the Palestinians have rejected three peace plans that would have allowed them to recover virtually all the occupied territories in 2001, 2008, and 2014. Revisionist have tried hard to deny this reality in 2001 and 2008 (I was among those who found mitigating circumstances to explain their rejection of Clinton and Olmert’s offers), but they are running out of arguments to justify Abbas’ rejection of Kerry and Obama’s offer in 2014. On top of that, top PA negotiators, Ahmed Qurei, Akram Haniyeh, Hussein Agha, Diana Buttu, among others, acknowledge now that the Palestinians will never sign a final-status agreement based on the Clinton parameters, as it doesn’t address the refugee issue well enough.
I am all in favor of imposing a peace plan on Israel, but doing so would meaningless if the Palestinians refuse to sign.
I’m not blaming the Palestinians for having rejected these peace plans. Obviously, neither Israelis nor Palestinians are emotionally capable of dividing the country. Their identity is too woven into this land. That’s fine. There are creative ways of solving the conflict, like a confederation for example. (A confederation can also have its own army and it’s own foreign policy, which means all the trappings of a federal state but without depriving the member states of their independence.)
What annoys me is when people accuse Israel of violating international law (with good reason) but also call for the dismantling of this state in the same breathe (which also happens to be a violation of international law).
Obviously, Western elites transpose their postcolonial guilt to Israel, which nurtures this anti-Israel hysteria. Radical anti-Zionism (which is the latest far-left fetich) won’t age well (just like Maoism or Trotskyism in the 1970s).
I’m sad to see the the author of the Icarus Syndrome (a beautiful book) is falling for it. But to paraphrase Raymond Aron, political ideologies are modern-day religions. Religious thinking is not rational.
One thing is sure: this conflict will end when both sides understand that they are not 100% right and the other side is not 100% evil. Obviously, Beinart has become part of the problem, not the solution.
Thank you Peter. It is such an important discussion. I truly believe the Palestinians would have disappeared without the early actions of the PLO. But then what happens afterward
In addition to M.L. King and N. Mandela, Gandhi also sanctioned violence wherein it is one's duty to defend your country through violent means, if you cannot do it non-violently. By assigning more responsibility to the Israelis for the (cycle of) violence, I do not believe Peter has become part of the problem. Rather, I feel Peter is stating the obvious wherein the moral obligation to break the cycle of violence falls on the stronger/superior power of the two sides engaged in conflict. As D. Tutu wrote: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor"
Hi Peter,
You made a very good case. And, by the way, no need to change anything in your style. You are doing great work! Thank you. David
I usually agree with you, but not this time. As a lifelong pacifist and activist, I do not believe that violence is ever justified except in the immediate defense of life. The equation of injustice and violence is rhetoric in defense of resort to violence, but it is not a reasonable statement in terms of any ethic I could accept. Ukraine's is a war of defense and I agree that they have the moral right to fight that war, but the arguments about MLK and Mandela, not so much. MLK was convinced of the power of nonviolence by Bayard Rustin, a man who has never been justly credited for his role in the Civil Rights movement (in which I was active). Here is a more accurate portrayal of Mandela than his one-time endorsement of violence (and then only against police and soldiers carrying out Apartheid). https://www.ashgrove.cheshire.sch.uk/_site/data/files/year%206/week%2011/9EE2E2604144166BC109F181D49BBD07.pdf I have a very long history of working with Palestinian peace activists (Jewish Peace Fellowship as Chair and since). Indulging in violence has not ever brought Palestinians any justice or any relief from oppression. It becomes the justification of violence and more oppression towards them. For a good model of why nonviolence is called (by us who value it) "a force more powerful," I recommend you look to the history of Leymah Gbowee, perhaps in the film about her "Pray The Devil Back to Hell."
Mr. Beinert, we know a lot of people in common and you may not know who I am, but I am very disappointed in this statement.
Perfectly put. Self-determination is a human right, not a reward for good conduct.
You write: "You’re not going to end Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians unless you deal with the problem of the massive violence that Palestinians experience." I'd say: "You’re not going to end the massive violence that Palestinians experience unless you deal with the problem of Palestinian organizations targeting civilians and claiming it's okay to kill Israeli civilians." As long as that is happening, liberals will never support Palestinians in substantive ways. These victims are Jews; and since WW2 it's the mantra of liberals is to protect Jews. You're not helping the Palestinians by making excuses for organizational attacks on civilians.
The sheer lack of knowledge here is breathtaking and it extends from the Professor Beinart down to his minions on this site. So let’s deal with the simple facts should you want to investigate them.
Here are some books to read:
Alexander Scholch – Palestine in Transition 1856-1882
Gershom Shafir- Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict 1882-1914
Neville j Mandel—The Arabs and Zionism Before WWI
David Grossman—Rural Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine
There are others by Ruth Kark for example who paint a more balanced picture of what happened.
To be sure some people who today call themselves Palestinians lived in the land throughout the last 2,000 years; these were Jews who became Christians and who later became Moslems but they were not and are not the dominant Moslem population that survived into the 19th and 20th century.
The facts are that the people who lived there starting in the 19th century are not the people who lived there throughout history. In the main their roots were from Arabia and they came into the land in phases starting in the 11th century and more came in the 17th century.
In the 19th century as a result of the slow rollback of the Ottoman Turks many people from as far away as Crimea, Algeria and Bosnia including some 2 million Circassians were settled in Syria (of which Palestine was a part). Also in the 1830s an Egyptian Army rolled through Palestine and on the way back somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 of the conscripts decided not to return to Egypt and settled in Palestine.
In fact, while the Jews in 19th century managed maybe 20 settlements Moslems managed more than twice as many in the same period. The point I am making here is that at the same time that Jews decided to return to Palestine so did many Moslems from other parts of the Middle East and Ottoman holdings. It was a race that continued until 1948. It is clearly documented if you want to see it. Or you can believe in the false narrative that the Jews disrupted and dislocated the “indigenous” Moslem population—this narrative fails on the demographic facts.
Finally, the notion that you can pay Israelis to leave their country speaks to your own lack of loyalty to your country which of course was stolen from the First Nations. Maybe you would take a million to go back to Eastern Europe (for example) but please don’t confuse your situation with Israel’s.
Dugin was the target, and he is part of the war effort. The Russians made Crimea into a war zone. Anyone crossing into a war zone risks collateral damage. Nice try trying to find radical leftist relativism here.
By the way, this article written by Shlaim displays the worst excesses of what Itamar Rabinovich called the "revisionist" understanding of the collapse of the peace process. At Camp David, the summit ended not because Arafat refused Barak’s final offer but rather because he refused to make a counteroffer. As for the Second Intifada, there is no way of knowing whether or not Arafat started it (his entourage is split, just like Israel’s security establishment), but one thing is sure: he refused to stop it, despite the fact that he knew that the US was about to unveil a peace plan offering the Palestinians close to 100% of the West Bank.
As for Olmert, his "lame-duck" status doesn’t change anything. Abbas too was a lame-duck, as he had no majority in Parliament and he lost control over Gaza in 2007. Anyhow, Olmert wanted to sign an agreement in principle with Abbas and call an election both in Israel and the Palestinian territories, so both peoples could endorse it. This was another missed opportunity.
Finally, Amir Tibon revealed in 2017 that Abbas refused to answer to Obama’s offer in March 2014 (it was confirmed by Kerry in his memoirs). This is what convinced me that the Palestinians were not ready to accept a deal based on the Clinton parameters. I’m pretty sure that if Abbas rejects another peace plan based on the Clinton Parameters, revisionist will find a way to deny it or make excuses to justify it. As I said earlier, religious thinking is not rational…
Aside from the fact that Shlaim has now become a Hamas advocate, he also has become very erratic. No wonder even Tom Segev parted ways with him.
He also rehashes the myth whereby Israel’s response to the Clinton parameters was no more positive than the Palestinian one. Perhaps, he should listen to his friend, Shlomo Ben Ami, who wrote in his latest book that 1) Israel accepted the Clinton parameters with reservations, but these were not categorical rebuttals. In fact, Ben Ami phoned Arafat to reassure him and guarantee that Israel accepted the Clinton parameters without any changes. In addition, during the Taba Summit, Israel went beyond Clinton’s framework demands to strike a deal with the Palestinians (Ben Ami offered 100% of the West Bank to the Palestinians as well as exclusive sovereignty over the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount, provided that this area would also be recognized as a Jewish holy site). The Palestinians were not willing to swap more than 2% of the West Bank (which means that close to 50% of the settlers would have to be uprooted) and insisted on having exclusive sovereignty over the Noble Sanctuary without recognizing the Jewish people’s connection to this site.
The main problem was the refugee issue. Clinton called on Israel to accept part of the blame for the creation of the refugee problem. He also offered the Palestinians a symbolic right of return to "historic Palestine" (which encompasses the whole British Mandate). However, he made it clear that they could only use this right in the future Palestinian state, not in Israel proper.
The Palestinians insisted on full Israeli responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem (this is enough to prevent both parties from reaching an agreement, even if they don’t insist on the implementation of the right of return), as well as a right of return for the refugees to Israel proper. They merely stressed that they would be "flexible" and "creative" in the implementation of the right of return. While they informally mentioned that they only wanted refugees living in Lebanon to be repatriated to Israel, they were not willing to put this down on paper. (The US too promised the USSR that there would be no NATO expansion eastward, but they didn’t sign anything, and ultimately nothing prevented NATO from expanding to Eastern Europe.)
The open-ended terms of the Palestinian Authority’s demands opened a Pandora’s box that would allow them to make further claims in the future. Israel cannot accept to renegotiate the return of new caps of refugees every decade or so (the latest official offer made by the PA in 2008 is the return of 80,000-150,000 refugees over a 10-year period, renewable). In other words, if after this 10-year period, Israel and the Palestinians do not agree on the number of refugees being allowed to return to Israel, the conflict resumes.
I’m not blaming the Palestinians for having rejected the Clinton parameters. However both sides refuse a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. Israelis refuse to go back to the Green Line, while Palestinians want two-states within 1967 borders, but they also want to keep the door open for further claims in the future.
What I’m saying is not controversial anymore. Most Palestinian negotiators have said time and again that Clinton’s framework won’t suffice to achieve a final-status agreement. That’s just fine.
I have no problem with going beyond the Clinton parameters by finding creative ways to implement the right of return without dissolving Israel. A confederal framework can also give both peoples indirect control over the whole land (as decisions takes by joint institutions would apply on both sides of the border).
I part ways with the North American Zionist left and anti-Zionists for two reasons:
1) North American liberal Zionists place the whole blame on Israel for the absence of peace.
2) Anti-Zionism may not be antisemitic but it is totally anachronistic. A Jewish state was a necessity in the late 1940s, as Jews were still persecuted and it was impossible to predict that their fate would improve so much in the second part of the 20th Century. Those who claim that a Jewish state should have been established in Germany fail to understand that the pre-state Israeli society already existed before WW2. No wonder most people on the left supported Israel’s creation in 1947…
There is no doubt that the creation of Israel caused great harm to the Palestinians, but denying that Jews needed a state more than any other people is pointless. Not all conflicts oppose the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other.
Richard Crossman and Reinhold Niebuhr used to say that when it comes to the Arab-Zionist conflict, there was no absolute justice. They saw partition as the "lesser evil" and "relative justice". One can disagree with this claim (I don’t deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian narrative), but the one-dimensional depiction of this conflict made by the left-wing intelligentsia is detrimental to mutual understanding and reconciliation.
With hindsight, it is now clear that Camus’ rejection of extremism was more sensible than Sartre’s knee jerk support for the excesses of Algerian nationalists. Camus too was isolated in the 1950-60s, but history proved him right. Let’s see in 50 years from now who turned out to be right: Amos Oz and Carlo Strenger or Tony Judt and Peter Beinart?!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/amos-oz-slams-netanyahu-but-chides-lefts-naivete/
https://www.haaretz.com/2009-08-14/ty-article/why-israels-left-has-disappeared/0000017f-db05-df62-a9ff-dfd7b26f0000
”Palestinian acts of violence must be contextualized” is sheer nonsense. And no there is no BUT… And incidentally it does not help your cause period end of story. Professor Beinart there is no justification for going after civilian life whether you are oppressed or not. Historically long before Israel had power over the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, attacks were carried out against Jewish civilians. In fact, these acts happened throughout the 20th century.
Palestinians have chosen not to accept a state from the 1920s on if the Jews get one too. And have continued to demand the whole loaf of bread and have proven time and again that sharing is not what they are interested in. Its tiresome to hear how oppressed they are—its their choice to oppress themselves.
Again let’s keep in mind who the leaders are on that side. Gaza is run by an organization whose goal is a theocratic state where Jews are not permitted (they want all Jews dead) and of course women have no rights in such a state. I would argue their existence is oppressive to the people under their thumb.
Let’s talk about the larger context. There is one thing missing in your piece: the Palestinians have rejected three peace plans that would have allowed them to recover virtually all the occupied territories in 2001, 2008, and 2014. Revisionist have tried hard to deny this reality in 2001 and 2008 (I was among those who found mitigating circumstances to explain their rejection of Clinton and Olmert’s offers), but they are running out of arguments to justify Abbas’ rejection of Kerry and Obama’s offer in 2014. On top of that, top PA negotiators, Ahmed Qurei, Akram Haniyeh, Hussein Agha, Diana Buttu, among others, acknowledge now that the Palestinians will never sign a final-status agreement based on the Clinton parameters, as it doesn’t address the refugee issue well enough.
I am all in favor of imposing a peace plan on Israel, but doing so would meaningless if the Palestinians refuse to sign.
I’m not blaming the Palestinians for having rejected these peace plans. Obviously, neither Israelis nor Palestinians are emotionally capable of dividing the country. Their identity is too woven into this land. That’s fine. There are creative ways of solving the conflict, like a confederation for example. (A confederation can also have its own army and it’s own foreign policy, which means all the trappings of a federal state but without depriving the member states of their independence.)
What annoys me is when people accuse Israel of violating international law (with good reason) but also call for the dismantling of this state in the same breathe (which also happens to be a violation of international law).
Obviously, Western elites transpose their postcolonial guilt to Israel, which nurtures this anti-Israel hysteria. Radical anti-Zionism (which is the latest far-left fetich) won’t age well (just like Maoism or Trotskyism in the 1970s).
I’m sad to see the the author of the Icarus Syndrome (a beautiful book) is falling for it. But to paraphrase Raymond Aron, political ideologies are modern-day religions. Religious thinking is not rational.
One thing is sure: this conflict will end when both sides understand that they are not 100% right and the other side is not 100% evil. Obviously, Beinart has become part of the problem, not the solution.
Thank you Peter. It is such an important discussion. I truly believe the Palestinians would have disappeared without the early actions of the PLO. But then what happens afterward
.
Well said.
Thank you for a thought provoking video, Peter. I'll do better.