israel
29 Sep 2008
Besieged From the Inside?
Radical Zionists made gains under Ehud Olmert, but their actions are pushing Israel towards catastrophe. The new Prime Minister must stop the settlers, writes Antony Loewenstein
In mid-September, during the dying days of his leadership, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boldly stated that the idea of "greater Israel is over. There is no such thing. Anyone who talks that way is deluding themselves...I arrived at the conclusion that we must share with those we live with, if we don't want to be a bi-national state."It was a brave comment, albeit one by a discredited man. Israeli newspaper Haaretz editorialised on his departure that, "it is doubtful whether it [Israel] has ever known a worse [leadership] than that of Ehud Olmert...Its balance sheet, after two years and nine months, comes very close to zero."
Although Olmert's failures were massive — not least the futile 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah — he at least acknowledged the reality of the Jewish state's precariousness in relation to the Palestinians. In late November 2007, Olmert admitted — for arguably cynical reasons — that "if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."
The tragic reality, however, is that the Jewish state is already on the path to self-inflicted destruction. Olmert sometimes said the right things, but his government's actions merely entrenched the ever-expanding occupation and indulged the radical settler movement.
There will be little that incoming Prime Minister Tzipi Livni will do to eradicate this internal existential threat. As the famous Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery wrote last weekend: "Israeli fascism is alive and kicking." The evidence for that is everywhere. And yet the international community only expresses concern over Palestinian "terrorism."
The New York Times last week revealed the depth of the problem in a rare exposé: "There have been bouts of settler violence for years, notably during the transfer of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005. Now, though, the militants seem to have spawned a broader, more defined strategy of resistance designed to intimidate the state...Hard-core right-wing settlers have responded to limited army operations in recent weeks by blocking roads, rioting spontaneously, throwing stones at Palestinian vehicles and burning Palestinian orchards and fields all over the West Bank, a territory that Israel has occupied since 1967. They have also vandalised Israeli Army positions, equipment and cars."
The aim of these extremists is to establish a Taliban-style, rabbinical state to replace the current "secular" Israel. It may seem like a pipedream to most — not least the vast majority of Israelis who oppose the occupation project — but the attempt to uproot any major settlement blocs will incur a vicious response. A civil war between the state and radical Zionists is not unlikely in the years to come. And Israel will only have itself to blame.
On the political front, a group of leading NGOs last week released a report accusing global powers of failing to gain any tangible benefits for the Palestinians. Roadblocks, checkpoints, expanding colonies, settler violence and strangulation of Gaza are just some of the issues raised in the report. No wonder then, as Haaretz noted, that "the motivation to carry out terrorist attacks is increasing." Arab radicalisation is guaranteed unless the lives of citizens drastically improve.
The answer is not co-opting the weakened Fatah-led Palestinian Authority into policing the occupation in a town such as Jenin (a strategy which was praised in a recent New York Times story). President Mahmoud Abbas is already perceived by many Palestinians, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, as engaging for years with the Israelis and having nothing to show for it.
Abbas recently told Haaretz, in an interview clearly designed to please his Israeli and American backers, that his forces were "restoring order to the West Bank cities [and] taking steps against anyone who tries to undermine security and stability."
Fine sentiments, except that the relationship remains one of colonial dependency. The Palestinians have to "prove" their seriousness to the Israelis and then one day, years down the track, the Jewish state may talk about withdrawing its forces and settlers from occupied territories. I've long argued that the facts on the ground in Palestine now make a full Israeli withdrawal a virtual impossibility. Therefore, the two-state "dream" is long dead and buried.
The future is one nation, well articulated by Ghada Karmi in The Guardian last week, amid the growing international calls for its implementation. Uncertainty in Israel is likely to continue long after a new Prime Minister is elected and the Americans select Barack Obama or John McCain in November.
The Zionist state appears paralysed and either unwilling or unable to carry out its obligation to decide its borders. It will therefore require a great deal of pressure to oblige it to do so. A good first step would be the complete cessation of military and financial aid to the Jewish state. Such a move would clarify the stakes in the minds of Israel's corrupt political elite.
Of course, any analysis of Israel's precarious position in the Middle East must include a discussion about Iran. News last week that Israel requested permission from the Bush administration in May to strike Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, and Bush's refusal, suggests that any attack is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
However, the fact that Washington and Israel have increased their secret war against Iran in the last years proves that Israel's regional hegemony is being profoundly challenged, not least thanks to the Iraq war. "Should Israel accept that its era of nuclear monopoly in the Middle East has ended, asks Yossi Melman in Haaretz, "and assume a new role as a passive witness to a regional nuclear arms race?"
Despite the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, claiming in a German newspaper last week that Iran appears to be on a path towards some kind of nuclear know-how, he admitted the wider context of the current tussle. "The Iranian issue at its heart is really a question of security," he said. "The nuclear [part] is a symptom of an underlying sense of insecurity or a desire to be recognized as a major, regional power."
Only direct talks between America and Iran can bring this about, something Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama hinted he would consider during his term in office in last week's debate with John McCain. The Jewish state and its Diaspora courtiers fear such a normalisation of relations between the powers because it would threaten Israel's long-held dominance of the region.
In a rare win for the forces opposed to the Zionist lobby in Washington, a long-pending (though non-binding) resolution that called for President George Bush to launch a blockade against Iran was shelved last week. The Australian Jewish News, meanwhile, must have missed reports of reduced tensions, saying in a September editorial, "with the rocky political climate in Israel, the logic appears to imply [military strikes] sooner rather than later. All we are waiting for [is] the time and date."
How many more wars does the Zionist community believe Israel should launch?
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is notorious in the West for making often outrageous comments towards Jews and Israel, and denying the Holocaust, his interview with Democracy Now! during his recent visit to New York, suggested a softer tone. Despite a bigoted attitude towards homosexuals, Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran would support a two-state solution if the Palestinian people supported it. "This Zionist regime does not have a chance of remaining in the region," he said, "because it has not established roots with the region. It's like an alien creature that's come into your body." It may not be pretty language, but he's sadly right. Israel's major friends in the Middle East, namely Egypt and Jordan, are paid billions of dollars every year by Washington to maintain an alliance with the Jewish state.
Throughout all these debates, the mainstream Jewish Diaspora remains mired in delusion. Dr Ron Weiser, the former President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, highlighted this recently with an essay that talked about the importance of re-defining Zionism in the 21st century. With no mention of either the occupation or the Palestinians, it was as if this ideology operated in a vacuum.
In the comments section below Weiser's essay, one reader perfectly expressed the mindset that I've spent years trying to challenge: "I believe God is with Israel and He has a strong hand in the continuing establishment of Israel."
God has His work cut out for him.
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Why should the settlers be stopped, especially if the state of Israel is now doomed?
They believe they are occupying and looking after lands and sites sacred to Judaism.
And if Israel is doomed because of its supposed occupation of Palestinian lands then what is going to replace it? An Islamic state?
At least the infrastructure and institutions for social justice and democracy are in place in Israel, a secular state.
If the powers that run Palestinian politics were going to establish a greater secular Palestinian state, treating all peoples as equal under the law in a secular political and legal system, I would agree that the time and need for the state of Israel has passed.
I would also say that Judaism is much bigger than the state of Israel.
And it is Judaism, or the faith that is most important in the final analysis and Judaism itself would survive such a destructive and backward step as the physical, violent destruction of Israeli lands.
I say this despite the irational fears some of the Jewish and Israeli people have about not being able to offer refuge in times of extreme anti-Semitism.
This is because we now have countries like the USA, Britain and Australia who value freedom of expression, freedom from oppression and the rule of law, to protect Jewish lives from religious fundamentalism or ideological totalitarianism.
Let the Palestinians continue to try and take back control of Palestinian lands by violence and force, but I doubt if the Palestinians will ever have the strength of conviction, the logistic ability, nor the courage to actually destroy Israel as they threaten to do, as this would also destroy and contaminate the very lands they also claim to hold sacred.
Denise,
Who cares what the "settlers" believe, they are stealing Palestinian land by violent means, Bronze Age nonsense is not an ethical justification for their behaviour, or Israel’s. You present the old and specious argument that the Palestinians are somehow unworthy and deserve the daily humiliations and oppressions the Israeli state inflicts on them.
Anthony,
The situation is indeed alarming, the "Palestinians don’t exist" argument seems to be very popular with some Zionists.
Anthony, what a great article. Articulated and researched with gold stars as per usual.
Ofcourse, you are articlating the view that many of us have held that the possiblity of a two state solution is slowly slipping through our fingers. Hopefully since you (and others) have articulated rather than a Palestinian or Arab, you wont be accused of forwarding yet another argument for the liquidation.
From your article, the thing that occurs to me to be most ironic is the manner in which after years of objecting to mulla sermons, extremism and anti-semitism etc in Friday prayers, etc. The mainstream of both Israeli and diaspora Jewry are going to be in exactly the same situation of contending with an extremist/facist political trend that they did nothing to stop, object to or contend with. The similarities are uncanny!
I care what everybody thinks Rocky, don’t you?
Or do you believe some people have more rights than others to a particular piece of land?
With modern politics you can sideline strong religious convictions but not discount them altogether.
I agree Israel must change and accommodate the Palestinians or perish.
But you have completely missed my point about the possible turn around in historical terms where Israel, as a nation, is now no longer needed to protect the Jewish people or their identity due to a change in the modern world of secular politics, internet communications and digital record-keeping.
Israel has served the purpose intended; that of consolidating Judaism as a world-wide religion now capable of surviving the complete destruction/transformation of the state of Israel.
Denise,
Well er…yes, of course I believe some people have more rights than others to particular piece of land, it’s one of the foundations of civilisation. The Palestinians have a right to Palestinian land, not the "settlers", strong religious convictions might explain their behaviour but not justify it. I’ll concede that most of Palestinian land is lost forever, but not the West bank. I certainly don’t understand your point that Israel has,through some mysterious historical imperative, provided protection for Jews and Judaism. The reverse has occurred, the appalling behaviour of the Israeli state has fuelled anti-semitism around the world, and shamed at least some Jews.
My Loewenstein Question Is: "How can a Jew be an antisemite?"
I know there are Jewish atheists and homosexuals, and self hating Jews.
I know I am answering my own question too. But Loewenstein refuses to.
I agree with Denise to the extent that Israel is not perfect but it is the best they will let us have.
I must hasten to add that foget about America, Australia, Europe, we can only have a strong diaspora with a strong Israel, and vice versa.
Maybe that’s what keeps these countries strong.
Germany, Poland Hungary, may not have been utopian paradises for Jews, but before the Nazis they were centres of great cultures, music art, philosophy, etc. Jews could attain positions of prestige because of hard work and brain power. They were limited in universities to quotas of Jewish students. (Numerus clausus).
So let them snipe and carp, it’s been happening for thousands of years, like hammers in the fire they will perish and the truth will overcome their lies.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Shona Tova
Tzvi,
But Oliver, most of our tribe, "the diaspora", cannot or will not handle “the truth”.
Despite Zionist and general Jewish denial or ignorance, the Khazar Empire created medieval and consequently modern Judaism.
The interaction between post-Bar Kochba Judaism and the pagan and then the Christian Roman Empire is clearly recorded for those who are not afraid of “the truth”. (Start with “Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.” by Seth Schwartz.) As good background read also about the academies of the Geonim who managed to claim a degree of disputed intellectual and religious authority over Judean communities.
Developments within Judaism over the centuries are obscure, but since the time period spoken of in Seth Schwartz’s book, a rising Khazar Empire needed a religion, a legal system, and a commercial organization in order to trade Slavic slaves with the Byzantine, Carolingian and Islamic Empires and they are clearly recorded for those of us brave enough to seek them and to study them.
Slaves Oliver, that is the nature of the commercial activity which started our current international enterprise or “gesheft” to exert control over mankind as if we were the undisputed masters of this planet. Our “gesheft” has changed to aspirations of control and command over money and the monopolies which the tribe enjoys over economies of the west today.
There is even evidence that Khazar funding gave the Geonic formulation of Judaism significant advantage over competing variants. In return the Geonim created a form of Judaism
- “… that fostered the development of an international Jewish legal and financial system optimized for the high margin trade in Slavic slaves as well as associated luxury commodities and
- “… that develops into Medieval Rabbinic Judaism…” - See “Imperialism and Jewish Society”
THAT is what Americans today instinctively know is being done to their society by our “lobby” Oliver. They can’t actually SEE it, because it is politically incorrect, our Holocaust industry has achieved political SELF_CENSORSHIP Oliver, but Americans INSTINCTIVLEY know it – and there will be terrible popular revolts against these enterprises Oliver. Think antisemitism on levels never before witnessed.
Study, if you have the guts, the developments within Judaism in these early periods which have analogues with the Western legal and economic evolution described by Nathan Rosenberg and Luther Earle Birdzell in “How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World”, The Jewish trading framework constructed during the early Medieval period was also an important input into the creation of the modern Western financial system. (See Schlomo Sand – Le origins de juifs actuaels” - See also this website for interesting takes on this - http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/08/SAND/16205
In other words the construction of the medieval and hence the modern world required four elements:
- the creation of the Carolingian Empire (Pirenne Thesis),
- the construction of the Islamic world,
- the preservation of Greco-Roman heritage in the Byzantine Empire (eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire), and
- the construction of the Medieval Jewish political-economic system through a collaboration of Khazar and Arab Jews.
Without comprehending the achievement of the Khazar ancestors of E. Jewry and Arab Jewish scholars we cannot understand how the current existence of how our diaspora came to be.
Of course, these views of Jewish history puts us in direct conflict with current Zionist beliefs that the Diaspora was at best valueless and needed to be negated and that Palestine is the homeland of the Jews, whither all Jews must be settled. A contempt for fact typical of all ideologies which cannot justify their existence on humanitarian or morally acceptable grounds.
To tell you the truth, until one actually sees, as some of us did from within an IDF uniform, what Zionism had done to Palestinians and what it is doing within American society, to British society, to French society, to Southern African, Argentinean and even parts of Brazilian society, one could be sympathetic to Zionism and the State of Israel.
Married to Zionism, but Socialism is the attractive whore we have used to lull the world into surrendering control and influence over over their economies, money and banking.
We can no longer be silent. But “the truth” as you put it Oliver, and the historical approach based on the literature which is already there, is like kryptonite to Zionists. Apply “the truth” to the history of Zionism in the Diaspora in any way which threatens Zionists, and you will witness every possible despicable reaction any human being could present to the world in defence of the indefensible.
We are all Palestinians now Oliver, and, ironically, the Zionist’s weapon of choice, control over money, media, misinformation and economy, or economics, is going to bury Zionism. The political arguments are becoming pointless. The religious arguments are already obsolete and the moral ones never existed.
Rockjaw,
YES, I’ve long argued that the Zionist doctrine of "return" is nonsense (1) because of the Khazar conversions and (2) many of the Palestinians are probably descendants of farmers who arived in the area thousands of years ago. The notion that since some Jews lived in Palestine 2000 years ago all Jews have the right to live there now is ridiculous. The Palestinans are are paying for Western anti-semitism.
I’ve no understanding of the history to which Rockjaw and Rocky refer, but Rocky’s comment that ‘the notion that since some Jews lived in Palestine 2000 years ago all Jews have the right to live there now is ridiculous’ strikes a sympathetic chord with me. I’ve long viewed the post-war establishment of the state of Israel as the most recent - and probably last - example of the colonisation of other countries by European settlers. And like all the colonising projects before it, it was done by force and displaced existing peoples. And like all settler societies, myths and legends were created or deployed to post-justify the occupation and dispossession. Am I making sense?
You make perfect sense Ginger, and you are most certainly on the right track.