Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Robert Rosenberg reports that a retired Israeli general has joined the chorus of military-intelligence experts calling for sanity and rationality in Israel’s response to Abbas’s call for final status negotiations:

Former general Amiram Levine, a much admired ex-commando [he led the assault against the Maalot terrorists] who served for a while as deputy chief of the Mossad, was on the radio yesterday morning and TV last night, saying that Israel should be in direct talks with the Palestinian government about a peace agreement based on ‘the framework we all know, back to the ’67 lines with corrections, no right of return, a division of Jerusalem.’ With such talks underway — sincere talks, he emphasized — it becomes possible to give the army instructions for firm action against the Qassams. But making the army provide a military solution to a political problem will only lead to trouble.

‘You can’t defeat a people fighting against oppression with more oppression,’ says the ex-general. But once the politicians take responsibility for finding a political solution, the Palestinians could be told that any Qassam rockets landing in Israel would lead to the demolition — by bulldozer, not shelling — of 10 to-15 houses, 12 hours after the rocket fell in Israel. If the rocket causes casualties, more than one block would be demolished.

It’s a plan and could even be implemented — but it depends on Israel doing what it has refused to do since the intifada began, talking with the Palestinians, and it depends on the Palestinians doing what they have refused to do since the intifada began: cracking down on the armed irregular militia, whether they be Qassam launchers or gunmen, plotters of suicide bombings or the bombers themselves.

It’s important to note that every one of these Israeli security experts who calls for peace negotiations is directly challenging Olmert’s cloud cuckoo land unilateral “realignment” plan. Furthermore, given a choice of believing the current military intelligence advisors clamoring for Israel to invade Gaza ‘to teach those militants a lesson once and for all’ (where and when have we heard this before??) and those such as Amiram Levine–I know which I’d choose to trust.

Robert Rosenberg of Ariga.com raises some interesting prospective issues regarding Mahmoud Abbas’ projected national referendum on the Prisoner’s Document, the peace plan crafted by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The plan calls for Palestinian recognition of Israel in return for a pullback to 1967 borders.

Rosenberg starts by comparing the Bush Administration’s new approach to talking with the Iranians to Olmert’s approach to “negotiating” with the Palestinians. In each case, Rosenberg believes there is an element of Kabuki theater; meaning that neither Bush nor Olmert really wish to negotiate seriously with either. But they must appear to be willing to do so. He says the U.S. may “get away” with this posturing:

Israel, however, might not be as ‘lucky’ as the Americans, when it comes to the Palestinians — the Abbas ultimatum to Hamas comes to a head next week, and while Hamas is still not speaking with a uniform voice in favor of the so-called Prisoners’ Document, which implicitly recognizes Israel by calling for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the polls show that prisoners’ initiative is supported by 80 percent of the Palestinians in the territories. The Fateh is saying it will hold a referendum on the 18-article document whether Hamas agrees or not. And the Islamic Jihad’s armed men showed up in front of TV cameras without their masks to announce they approved it, as well.

If the Hamas accepts the Prisoners’ Document, it will pave the way for a complete breakdown of the so-far united international front isolating the Hamas government, particularly since the Prisoners’ Document explicitly calls for a national unity government, which would ‘dilute’ the Palestinian government with Fateh ministers. Hamas-Damascus is of course against it, which makes problems for the government of Ismail Haniyeh. Polls show support for Hamas slipping to below 30 percent, with more than 40 percent favoring Fateh right now — and hundreds, if not thousands of PA police loyal to Fateh protested at Gaza’s parliament building — ransacking it in anger — demanding their salaries, then marched in support of Abbas.

If the international front breaks down, pressure will quickly mount on Israel to engage the PA government, and not just Abbas, in real dialogue – and to release the $150 million it presumably has collected in customs and VAT on behalf of the PA since Hamas took office and Israel began its economic siege of the PA.

I, for one, hope that the Bush Administration, the EU and other governments are anticipating the outcome of such a referendum, if it takes place, and what their response to it would be. There are many ifs here but…if Abbas pursues the referendum path; and if the electorate approves it; and if Hamas falls into line with it; then Israel should be made to honor its own rhetoric. It must sit down and negotiate with Abbas AND Hamas for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

The world must end the blockade of Gaza. It must recognize Hamas as Palestine’s legitimate national government. It must treat Hamas and Palestine as a member in good standing of the world community. If it does some or all of those things I believe there will be a rude awakening within the Israel and a sea change comparable to the one Sharon engineered regarding Gaza withdrawal and the demise of the settler movement.

The international community should anticipate that Olmert will come with 1,000 new reasons why he can’t or won’t negotiate with Abbas or Hamas. But his feet must be kept to the fire. And even if Hamas does not fully accept the Prisoner’s Document or the referendum, the fact that the Palestinian people will have democratically endorsed the provisions must compel Israel to at least negotiate in good faith with Abbas. If Olmert continues to argue that he can’t negotiate with Abbas because Hamas still rejects Israel’s existence (a ridiculous contention to begin with), then the world must tell him this argument no longer holds merit. Condi, are you listening??

Ira Forman, NJDC executive director (photo: Philadelphia Jewish Voice)

The NJDC just e mailed me one of their periodic alerts. This one announced that Ira Forman, the group’s executive director, had attacked a Jimmy Carter USA Today column about Ehud Olmert’s West Bank “realignment” plan. Forman himself had penned his own objections in a column in Washington Jewish Week.

I am a good Jewish Democrat who often finds myself in agreement with the work of the NJDC. But Ira Forman’s column is so wrong-headed and so ignores the facts of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict that I could not allow it to go uncontested.

First, Forman gets really exercised by Carter’s statement:

[Olmert's] plan, as described during the recent Israeli election and the formation of a new governing coalition, would take about half of the Palestinian West Bank and encapsulate the urban areas within a huge concrete wall and the more rural parts of Palestine within a high fence.

Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin sign Camp David accord (photo: Carter Library)

He counters:

[Carter] describes Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s unilateral withdrawal plan as one “which would take about half of the Palestinian West Bank and encapsulates the urban areas within a huge concrete wall … .”

Where does he get this stuff? Olmert’s government has not produced any definitive unilateral withdrawal plan. However, every report of possible plans assumes that if there continues to be no Palestinian peace partner, then Israel will withdraw its population behind the security fence — taking in about 8 percent of the West Bank.

While Israel may only be retaining 8% of Palestinian territory for its settlements–with the Maaleh Adumim project & by retaining control of the Jordan Valley the actual amount of territory that is rendered inaccessible to the Palestinians is much greater than that 8%. I don’t know whether Carter’s 50% figure is correct, but I have no doubt that it is a realistic one.

Forman continues his diatribe against Carter’s comments about the nature of the Separation Wall:

it is astonishingly disingenuous to talk about concrete wall encapsulating Palestinian urban areas. Of the seven cities that the Palestinian Authority lists as having more than 100,000 people, only in Jerusalem will concrete barriers run through the middle of urbanized land.

Even in Jerusalem, it is misleading to say that the fence “encapsulates” the urban population. He further claims that the Olmert plan “would effectively divide it [the West Bank] into three portions.” This echoes the Palestinian Authority’s rhetoric about bantustans. While the convergence plan envisions creating strips of land that reach into the West Bank in a few areas, a review of the security fence maps belies charges of chopping the area up into three separate portions.

A combination of the Separation Wall running through the middle of East Jerusalem (Abu Dis) and the Maaleh Adumim project will effectively wall off the 250,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem from the West Bank. The majority of Israeli analysts, journalists and politicians accept this formulation. A reading of any number of posts on this subject in this blog will take you to some of their views. Yet Forman is so blinded by his slavish adherence to Olmert’s vision that he must deny reality readily accepted by knowledgeable Israelis.

Why Forman’s miserable pilpul/casuistry over the word “encapsulate?” The exclusion barrier is a structure that imprisons the Palestinians. Let me ask Forman this: has he ever visited a Palestinian village next to the wall? He brings Dem bigwigs on Israel tours all the time. Have they ever once visited with common Palestinian folk affected by the Wall. If not, how in heaven’s name does he know what that experience is like and whether “encapsulated” is the proper word to describe it?

Unbelievably, Forman denies the internationally accepted norm of the Green Line. Like other hardline pro-Israel ideologues he must argue that the Green Line is a fiction that was never embraced by Israel or the international community. His argument has the ring of many other circular arguments which divorce themselves from reality. The Green Line IS universally accepted. It is the 1967 border. It will be the basis for any final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians (though the final border may diverge from it slightly by mutual agreement). Arguing otherwise as Forman does is a useless exercise in blowing smoke.

Second, regarding Palestinian willingness to negotiate: Abbas has continually spoken of his willingness to enter into final status negotiations with Israel. Only Olmert refuses to do so citing the demand that Hamas meet preconditions before he will negotiate with Abbas.

Now let’s talk about the Road Map. Forman reminds us:

Has President Carter totally forgotten that a central requirement of the Phase I portion of the road map is that the P.A. bring a halt to violence, terrorism and incitement?

But what he and other hardline pro-Israel folk always neglect to add is that the Road Map was a MUTUAL document that called for simultaneous actions by both sides. And while the Palestinians were supposed to stop terror Israel was supposed to stop new settlement activity. Israel has not done so and new building is happening in the West Bank as I write this. Why does Forman believe that only the Palestinians are subject to the provisions of the Road Map while Israel isn’t?

While Forman fulminates on Carter’s perfidy toward Israel, events on the ground both in Palestine and Israel will render the former’s views completely obsolescent. In the coming months, possibly in a year, Israel will be negotiating with Abbas and Hamas. In the end, Israel’s Exclusion Wall will be dismantled in whole or in part. The final border will run very close to the Green Line with only a few diversions to incorporate those settlement blocs which both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators designate as Israeli territory (in exchange for Negev territory per Clinton’s Camp David proposals). All argument to the contrary is mere hackery and a distraction from reality.

In fact, one wonders why the NJDC and Aipac’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more hardline than those of the Bush Administration? Hell, they’re even more hardline than some ministers in the current Israeli government. Now, why might that be?

As a Jewish liberal Democrat, I can see that the NJDC does not represent me when it comes to Israel. I’m much more comfortable with Brit Tzedek, the Israel Policy Forum and American Friends of Peace Now. That NJDC appears to be in the pocket of Aipac irks me no end.

I value Jimmy Carter’s contribution to the Israel-Palestine discussion. NJDC should too. President Carter has done more to advance the cause of Israeli-Arab peace than most Americans. What has Ira Forman done on that score? I wonder why Aipac & NJDC both detest him so & what this says about relations between these two ostensibly independent groups?

Thomas R. Pickering, former number 3 in the State Department and U.S. ambassador to Israel (1985-1988) spoke some interesting truths in a speech last week covered by the Daily Star’s Rami Khouri. Pickering, who was once in the running to become Secretary of State (but lost out to Madeleine Albright), is attempting to inject some hardheaded realism into the discussion of what should be reasonably be expected of Israel for final status talks:

Thomas R. Pickering (photo: Boeing)

[Pickering] argued that a two-state solution required a return of Palestinian land occupied in 1967, “approaching 100 percent, with negotiated tradeoffs,” giving Palestinians control over their own internal security and foreign guarantees for their external security. Jerusalem’s status would be resolved according to the Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton ideas of 2000 (essentially: what’s Arab is Arab, and what’s Jewish is Jewish).

Pickering’s call for Israel to recognize the right of return of the 1948 Palestinians is noteworthy. No serving or retired American official of such stature and firsthand personal knowledge of the conflict has ever explicitly called for Israeli recognition of the Palestinians’ right of return. I pursued the matter privately with Pickering after his public talk, and asked if he was referring strictly to the generation of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. He replied affirmatively, and explained:

“The right of return is controversial and the Israelis don’t want to actually admit or honor this right, for the simple reason that they see it as a slippery slope. Over a period of time they think that the Palestinian and Arab objective is to flood Israel with returning refugees, and therefore, in a sense, ‘demograph’ it out of existence. The real question is whether a right of return could be recognized within negotiated limits. This would give to the Palestinians the recognition they feel is important for themselves, but at the same time protect Israel against a flood of returnees.”

How would his proposal work in practice? “I would say there are three or four steps,” Pickering explained. “First, recognize the right of return. Second, define it. One way to define it in the narrowest way would be to say that anybody who left in 1948 could return, but not their progeny born after 1948. Another way would be to say anybody who left in 1948 could return, along with some family unifications, up to a limit of, say, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000 or whatever the two sides agree on. Third, the other individuals who were involved over the years in one way or another obviously have to be dealt with in a serious way, including by the international community. There, I suggest those others who live elsewhere - Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Brazil, wherever - would have a right within some limits set by the Palestinians themselves to go to the new state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. Obviously [the Palestinian state] could not absorb everybody. So point number four would be an international program, very liberally funded, for relocations, in places like Canada, the United States, Australia - whoever is willing to offer to take individuals who have no place [to go] but want to start a new life somewhere and who need international help to do that.”

Pickering’s call for a virtual “100% return” to ‘67 borders seems necessary to me as well. I’d perhaps tinker with the 100% number as Clinton did at Camp David by attempting to incorporate some large West Bank settlement blocs within Israel in return for Israeli territorial offsets in the Negev or elsewhere.

The ambassador’s proposal for a “modified” Right of Return is similar to my understanding of the Geneva Accords on this subject. If hardline pro-Israel forces would stop screaming long enough about this proposal sounding the death knell for the State of Israel as we know it–they’d see that it is a workable compromise which will allow Palestinians to achieve a cherished dream (returning to the land they lost–even in modified form–in 1948), while it would in no way endanger Israel which would be accepting a five to six-figure influx of Palestinian former refugees.

A completely rhetorical question: why is it that State Department officials can only make such public pronouncements after they retire from diplomatic service? If a few of our currently serving diplomats could muster up the same forthrightness we might see some real progress in solving the conflict (not to mention giving Israeli leaders a heart attack due to our unexpected candor).

Gershom Gorenberg, one of Israel’s foremost scholars of the Israeli settler movement, spoke to a Seattle gathering of the Israeli Policy Forum today at a Mercer Island reception. Gorenberg is an editor and one of the founders of the Jerusalem Report, a centrist Anglo-Israeli magazine. He publishes widely in the U.S. media and recently had a column in the NY Times. He also has a new book, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements 1967-1977.

Gershom Gorenberg

He began with a humorous story concerning people who constantly ask him about his ideological perspective on the settler movement. To all of them he replies that he is ideologically neutral and that his work is scholarly and objective in nature. They reply by saying: “but is your work objectively leftist or rightist?” While he notes that he’s been accused by The Nation of being a Zionist apologist and by The New Republic of being a “post-Zionist,” it seems clear to me that he is clearly in the peace camp. At least, that’s what I get from the Seattle talk he gave and his recent NY Times column.

I find it interesting that Seattle has hosted two talks this week by religious Israeli scholars who are both doves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Gorenberg and Menachem Klein (I’ll be writing my next post about Klein).

Gorenberg took his audience back to 1967 and discussed the the origins of that war. He claimed it was almost an accidental war and that neither side really planned for it to happen. Rather, it was a case of one side ratcheting up the pressure and the other feeling compelled to respond in kind until one side tripped the wire that caused the eruption.

He noted that Israel violated one of von Clausewitz’s cardinal rules of war. It got itself into a war before it had a clear idea of what its strategic goals were. As the Wikipedia article on military strategy states:

Fundamental to grand strategy is the diplomacy through which a nation might forge alliances or pressure another nation into compliance, thereby achieving victory without resorting to combat. Another element of grand strategy is the management of the post-war peace. As Clausewitz stated, a successful military strategy may be a means to an end, but it is not an end in itself. There are numerous examples in history where victory on the battlefield has not translated into long term peace and security.

When it went to war, Israel had no idea what it wanted ultimately from a victory. And this lack of clarity or forethought served as the precursor for all the bad decisions that came after and which precipitated Israel’s settlement enterprise in the Occupied Territories.

According to Gorenberg, there was much confusion within the government about what should be done with this conquered land. On the same day (only a week after the war was won) two events occurred which are entirely illustrative of this confusion. At a debate on the status of the Territories, the Justice Minister told the cabinet that the Zionist enterprise would be dead if Israel maintained control of them. Concurrently, a representative of the Jewish Agency visited the Golan to perform a survey of possible sites for future Israeli settlements. The Agency representative carried out this mission even though there was not yet any formal government proposal for settlement.

The creation of the settlement movement involved a series of spontaneous, erratic and poorly thought through decisions that led the nation deeper and deeper into the quagmire (must like another quagmire currently facing another world power). When an audience member asked Gorenberg how otherwise intelligent political leaders like Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan and Levi Eshkol could allow Israel to be dragged into such a mess, the author replied “I enjoy studying quagmires created by smart people–as opposed to quagmires created by not so smart people” (a veiled reference to Bush’s Iraq war).

An important part of this scholar’s message is to remind us that the settler movement was NOT a product solely of Orthodox Jews or the right. Labor too played an important role. Yigal Allon created one of the first plans which called for wholesale settlement of the West Bank. His mentor in the United Kibbutz Movement, Yisrael Tabenkin, first coined the term Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlayma (”the great land of Israel”) which became the first slogan and rallying cry for the settler movement.

In comparing the Allon Plan to Olmert’s most recent plan to withdraw to the Separation Wall and declare it Israel’s international border, Gorenberg notes at TPMCafe:

History repeats, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce,” Karl Marx remarked in “the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.” But a sad farce, at which only a cold soul could laugh.

Thirty years ago, in the mid-1970s, the unofficial policy of Israel’s Labor government was the Allon Plan: Israel would hold onto and settle unpopulated areas of the West Bank, and seek to return the populated areas to Jordanian rule. Marked for settlement and annexation were the strip of desert along the Jordan River and the land east of Jerusalem where the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim was beginning to go up.

The Allon Plan was an example of “playing chess with ourselves,” as one Labor leader criticized it before adopting it. It met Israel’s perceived needs, but had no Arab partner. Jordan was willing to make peace – but only on the basis of the pre-1967 border…

Today Ehud Olmert, erstwhile believer in the Whole Land of Israel, has accepted that Israel must avoid ruling over the Palestinians, and to do so it must give up land. His map of Israel’s borders-to-be – as expressed in his public comments this week – is very similar to the Allon Plan. Israel will build in the area between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim because it will keep that settlement, and the desert along the Jordan. It will evacuate some of the scattered settlements along the mountain ridge.

But there is no Palestinian partner for that plan. By brilliant deduction, Olmert has ended up with the failed conclusions of the past.

I did disagree with Gorenberg’s characterization of Hamas. He claimed that Hamas was no better than the old PLO, whose policy used to be: “we’ll accept any land that Israel offers to us without renouncing our claim to the entire land of Israel.” He said that Hamas’ current policy seems to be the same: Olmert can withdraw from whatever territory he wants and we’ll accept that and incorporate it into our state. But we will continue our war until we gain all of present-day Israel.

This view flies in the face of every pronouncement I’ve read from Hamas leaders. Haniye and Zahar, the major political leaders in Palestine, have offered a long term truce in return for an Israeli commitment to return to ‘67 borders. Full stop. I’ve not seen ANY recent statement in which Hamas reserves the right to continue on till the final liquidation of Israel. Of course, Gorenberg and other may argue that this is the unspoken collateral statement in all those Hamas pronouncements and that it lurks unspoken behind everything that Hamas says publicly. That is possible. But I don’t believe it’s likely given everything I’ve read from the Mideast since the Palestinian election.

I asked Gorenberg: if we accept the notion that Israel eventually will have to embrace 1967 borders in order to achieve a final status peace settlement, then how can we get to that consensus position within Israeli society? There is no doubt that Sharon took Israel a huge distance in breaking the hold of the settler movement on the Israeli political consciousness. In my view, he took his country half-way toward where it needs to be for a final peace agreement. And now the political consensus seems to say that Israel’s final borders should follow the Separation Wall. This Israeli consensus is by no means shared by anyone outside Israel. So how do you get from halfway to peace all the way there?

The speaker’s reply noted that what happens regarding this question is dependent on developments in Palestine. If the Palestinians can control terror, then Gorenberg believes that Israelis will come around to 1967 borders. But if they cannot control violence, then Israeli will not.

I’m not sure I disagree with this formulation. But I believe that negotiations and Israeli willingness to compromise on borders should not be dependent on a full cessation of terror. After all, Sharon used this ruse (demanding full end to violence before he would negotiate with Abbas) as a convenient excuse never to negotiate.