My latest story at Truthout, Washington Visit: Bibi’s Waterloo? It summarizes my thinking about the disaster that was Bibi’s Washington visit (both for U.S. and Israeli policy), and conversely the hopeful international developments that militate against Bibi’s rejectionism and Israel’s seemingly endless Occupation.
Posts Tagged ‘Mideast Peace’
New at Truthout, ‘Washington Visit, Bibi’s Waterloo?’
Friday, June 3rd, 2011Palestine: Road to Statehood
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011Haaretz fleshes out Palestinian plans to bring its case for statehood before the General Assembly in September. A recent article quoting the current General Assembly president as saying that Palestine could not achieve full UN membership without Security Council approval appears to have been incomplete. It is true that under normal procedures a state may not become a member until both the GA and SC have approved its candidacy. To become a member, a nation needs the backing of nine Security Council members with no veto offered by any member. It would also need to agree to abide by the UN Charter and to have satisfied certain benchmarks determined by UN bodies that guarantee it would be a viable state. Palestine has already succeeded in meeting these targets
In order to begin this process, the PA must bring the issue of statehood before the Security Council, where it will be vetoed by the U.S. At that point, the General Assembly may take up the matter first by recognizing Palestine as a state, then by voting by 2/3 majority to accept it as a full member. In this way, there is a way to do an end-around the Security Council and the U.S. veto.
However, Bibi Netanyahu seems confused when he claims here that Palestine cannot become a full-fledged UN member without Security Council approval:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a [Knesset] meeting…nothing could be done to prevent the UN General Assembly from recognizing a Palestinian state.
“They can decide that the world is flat, there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Netanyahu. “We have no way of blocking a decision by the assembly. We will get support there from only a few countries.”
However, Netanyahu still said the move could be thwarted.
“We have no way to obstruct the UN decision,” he said, warning that that the Palestinians will not succeed in their efforts in the UN Security Council. “It is impossible to recognize a Palestinian state without passing through the Security Council and such a move is bound to fail.“
It certainly is possible to recognize a Palestinian state if the Security Council vetoes the bid. What Bibi doesn’t choose to recognize is the UNGA ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution 377 which provides for the Assembly to accept a state if the SC has been paralyzed and unable to approve such an action. Use of the Resolution would certainly be controversial and Israel (and the U.S.) would fight it. But unless they can get the GA to agree not to adopt the Resolution it appears likely the body can and will recognize and accept Palestine as a full member.
In the meantime, I just caught myself humming that hoary pop standard, See You in September:
I’ll be alone each and every night
While you’re away, don’t forget to writeBye-bye, so long, farewell
Bye-bye, so longSee you in September
See you when the summer’s through…Have a good time but remember
There is danger in the summer moon above
Will I see you in September
Or lose you to a summer love…
Ehud Barak has already warned that Israel faces a “diplomatic tsunami” in September. Perhaps Bibi should take heed of the words of the song: “there is danger in the summer moon above.”
Once Palestine becomes a full member, it can then bring charges against Israel for occupying its territory in contravention of international law. Israel would be bound as a fellow member to obey any ruling finding the Occupation to be an infringement on Palestine’s sovereignty. If it refused, the UN could them impose sanctions on Israel. Palestine may also bring a case before the International Criminal Court against Israeli generals for war crimes violations, as Palestine would now fall under ICC jurisdiction. This would further hem in Israel’s freedom of action in maintaining the Occupation.
The handwriting is on the wall. The Occupation will fall. Perhaps not this year, maybe not next, but soon.
I Delegitimize Occupation
Friday, March 25th, 2011After the IDF’s intelligence unit, Aman, came up with the bright idea to create a special unit to investigate, monitor and spy on Diaspora groups opposed to the Occupation (enemies now known by the catchy phrase, “delegitimizers”), I thought the only proper response was to step up proudly and say: “I am one.” Not a delegitimizer in the terms they employ since they falsely claim that delegitimizers wish Israel’s destruction. That’s not the kind of delegitimizer I am. I delegitimze Occupation as do all the groups they’ll be harrassing. So Michael Levin and I came up with this poster which we hope you will share, promote, circulate via social media, etc.
Let’s tell the generals, spooks, inquisitors and ideologues that we want to be first on the list to be investigated. I delegitimize Occupation. There. Now I said it. I feel better already. Now when can I be expecting that knock on the door in the middle of the night from someone from headquarters saying they just have a few questions?

IDF vs. the Delegitimizers
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011Let me get this out of the way: I’m a proud delegitimizer of the Occupation. And I expect, nay demand to be included among those investigated by the new IDF military intelligence unit created to monitor the evil deeds of Diaspora delegitimizers (like you and I).
Aman, IDF’s military intelligence unit, has come up with the single worst, most offensive idea to come out of Israel in–well, in at least a week or so. No actually and seriously this is one really big disaster of an idea. It’s so horrible, it’s hard to wrap my mind around just how bad it is:
Military Intelligence [Aman] is collecting information about left-wing organizations abroad that the army sees as aiming to delegitimize Israel, according to senior Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers.
The sources said MI’s research division created a department several months ago that is dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups and will work closely with government ministries…
The undefined and potentially broad scope of such a venture, which IDF sources say is focusing on how to respond to maritime convoys aimed at breaching Israel’s Gaza blockade, has some Foreign Ministry officials concerned that the army is overreaching.
Now keep in mind, this is Avigdor Lieberman and Danny Ayalon’s MFA that is raising red flags about this noxious project. The most right-wing of the governing coalition even worries that the spooks may’ve gone overboard. That tells you something.
“We ourselves don’t know exactly how to define delegitimization,” said one ministry official. “This is a very abstract definition. Are flotillas to Gaza delegitimization? Is criticism of settlements delegitimization? It’s not clear how Military Intelligence’s involvement in this will provide added value.”
Wow, a voice of reason. Who’d a thunk it coming from the MFA.
Military Intelligence officials said the initiative reflects an upsurge in worldwide efforts to delegitimize Israel and question its right to exist.
Shall we challenge them to name a single group that denies Israel’s right to exist. Who does? BDS? Wrong. BDS is an attack on the Occupation, not Israel’s existence.
“The enemy changes, as does the nature of the struggle, and we have to boost activity in this sphere,” an MI official said. “Work on this topic proceeds on the basis of a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel on the one hand, and efforts to harm it and undermine its right to exist on the other.”
This is pure b(^^#)&t. No one in Aman, just as no one inside the Israel lobby makes any distinction whatsoever between criticism of Israel and undermining its right to exist. You and I know that in the narrow minded brains of these ideologues there is no difference. Unless, they’re saying that legitimate criticism of Israel comes from the likes of the Labor party or Kadima, but no one else. Under those narrow, twisted terms, I guess they’d be right.
The following passage contains possibly the most alarming, damaging admission. The new spook unit will not just monitor activity in Israel or from Israel, it will actively monitor groups in the U.S. and Europe. One presume that this means they might even do so on European or U.S. soil. I would hope a few of our more courageous Congress members might have a question or two about such activity. I’m wondering how many U.S. laws such spying would violate here. I hope at least a few.
If I didn’t know better, I’d also call for a Knesset investigation of this idiocy. But the Knesset IS the very type of people who think this is a neat idea. Why would anyone expect any sanity coming from its halls?
Personally, I find it deeply offensive that the State of Israel is going to keep tabs on groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and blogs like mine, Phil Weiss’ and others. I say “keep tabs.” You and I both know that Israeli intelligence doesn’t just keep tabs. It engages in active campaigns to smear the work of such people. In fact, I’ve even written here about my suspicion that some efforts to plant stories here may be more than the effort of wannabe pro-Israel spooks:
The new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it or imposing sanctions on it. The unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups.
…The unit’s other spheres of responsibility have yet to be clearly defined, but are expected to involve pinpointing the subjects that Israel’s other intelligence agencies should investigate, sources said.

Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser: delegitimizing the delegitimizers (whew, that was a mouthful!)
Did you hear that JVP, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and who knows how many thousands of others? You’re a target.
The quality of intelligence information about groups aimed at delegitimizing Israel has improved and the quantity has increased in recent months, said an official in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“There is a demand for such information,” he said. “Officials need information on such topics, and it hasn’t always been available in the past, because there was a lack of awareness pertaining to this topic in the intelligence community. The new unit’s orientation will be to collect information and carry out intelligence research for the Foreign Ministry and other government ministries.
The unit has the support of Brig. Gen. (res. ) Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and a previous head of MI’s research division. During the second intifada, he pushed for the intelligence community’s large-scale involvement in public advocacy and diplomatic matters, a stance that was criticized by other MI officers.
Yet another mid-level spook seeking to advance his career with a cracker-jack program serving absolutely no useful purpose, and which will only further tarnish Israel’s reputation as a state which has lost any semblance of democracy. A state in which the lunatics have taken over the asylum. A state in which spies and security-obsessed freaks make the rules while the nation marches along in virtual lock-step.
What kind of Israel is this? For me, it’s an Israel for which I feel ashamed. Who is delegitimizing Israel? Israel is. Occupation delegitimizes. Killing Gazan teenagers playing soccer with a tank shell delegitimizes. The harm is not from the BDS community. It is from nitwits like Brig. Gen. Kuperwasser who think they’ve come up with a new way to spook the bad guys.
I say with pride that I will gladly sign up as one of the first on the list to be investigated. Not that I will willingly talk to or be interrogated by one of these goons. But to know I am actively being investigated as a delegitimizer of Israel’s Occupation is something devoutly to be wished.
In fact, I suggest that my readers and as many progressive bloggers and NGOs as we can sign up, should send e mails to Brig. Gen. Kuperwasser (doesn’t the guy’s name sound like something out of a Woody Allen New Yorker story?) demanding that we be included among the delegitimizers. Let me be the first to step forward. Can someone get me an e mail address for this tin pot spook?
In case you didn’t guess this already, Kuperwasser is a darling of the Israel lobby, listed as a published author or speaker for groups such as The Israel Project and and Dore Gold’s Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He’s appeared before the neocon Intelligence Summit. And he’s also a favored source of the Washington Times’ Eli Lake and Politico’s Ben Smith–surprise, surprise. His formal job and title is director of the Office for Strategic Affairs under hard-right Likud Minister Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon.
For those who would like to see an example of how such snooping would work in action, read Gideon Levy’s tale of an Israeli “spy” taking copious notes during a talk in Dublin, passing them on to his superiors in foreign ministry central, who redact it to excise anything favorable to Israel and highlight anything critical, and there you have it, a perfect picture of the intelligence state run amok:
About two weeks ago, I was invited to the Jewish Book Week in London, following the publication in English of my book “The Punishment of Gaza.” The Jewish establishment in Britain threatened to boycott the event, the organizers considered hiring security guards, and roughly 500 people, mainly middle-of-the-road Jews, filled the hall, asked questions and mainly, in their modest way, expressed great sympathy. I spoke, as I always do, against the occupation, the injustices and the damage it does to Israel and to the Palestinians, against the attacks on Israeli democracy as I have written in the hundreds of articles that have been published in Haaretz in Hebrew and in English, and as I did at the London School of Economics and Trinity University [ed. College] in Dublin.
As on previous occasions, a “spy” from the Israeli Embassy was sent to Trinity – this one, an Israeli student who was asked to write down what I said and convey it to the embassy. The embassy quickly dispatched a report to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, and the Foreign Ministry quickly leaked it to a well-known newspaper, which published only my harshest statements, without context – and there you have it: the indictment of a dissident.
One can ignore the way the embassy spies on journalists, evoking dark regimes. I would be glad to see a government representative at my lectures who was not under cover, if they have any interest. But one cannot ignore the message conveyed by such conduct – that of a witch hunt against a journalist whose opinions diverge from the party line.
If I were the rector of that university it would give me pause to know a student might’ve been placed at my school for just such a purpose to spy on visiting Israeli left-wing speakers and perhaps even faculty members who refuse to toe the Israeli government party line. I’m guessing the “paper” to which his story was leaked was the Jewish Chronicle, which would seem only too willing to smear someone like Levy. This too raises questions about the extent to which the Israeli intelligence apparatus uses sources, whether wittingly or unwittingly, to advance its own partisan, ideological agenda. It raises questions about whether universities and newspapers should carefully consider such activity and whether it violates ethical norms and the interests of their institutions. In this case, you have a student exploiting his position on campus to advance the interests of Israeli intelligence and you have a newspaper which accepts a deliberately manipulated account of Levy’s speech.
Dagan’s Holocaust: A Monster That Will Not Die
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Image claimed to be that of Rabbi Dov Ehrlich z"l, Meir Dagan's grandfather, which hangs in his Mossad office
I wrote last night about Meir Dagan’s famous office photo, ostensibly showing his grandfather on bended knee wrapped in his tallis before what appear to be German or Polish soldiers or police, one of whom wields a billy club. Dagan claims, according to Ronen Bergman and this Ynet story (thanks to IlanP for drawing my attention to it), that the photo was taken moments before his father was shot. Dagan uses the picture as a prop in his motivational speeches to Mossad operatives before they embark on important covert missions:
“Look at this photograph,” Dagan tells the Caesarea fighters. “This is what must guide us and lead us to act on behalf of the State of Israel. I look at the picture and vow that I will do everything I can to ensure that something like this will never happen again.”
In yesterday’s post I wrote about my disquiet at this use of such past personal family tragedy to justify Israel’s current political agenda. I have some further thoughts on this subject because the image and way Dagan uses/exploits it still bother me.
First, let me say that the Holocaust is undoubtedly a singular trauma in Jewish history and one that has left an indelible mark on all Jews, certainly today and likely for all time. There can be no doubt that survivors and descendants of survivors each have to find a way through the pain of this experience. In most cases, I refuse to judge the ways in which victims and those related to them (several great uncles and aunts of mine perished in the Holocaust though I never knew them) do this. But in the case of those who exploit the Holocaust for political or nationalist purposes, I draw the line.
Dagan, like Israel itself, treats the Holocaust not just as a historical event, but as one that continues to happen or threatens to happen to Israel today. Dagan’s enemies (and those of the State of Israel) are no different than the Cossacks, Nazis and Inquisitors who’ve inflicted pain on Jews throughout our history. The genocide perpetrated on our people during World War II is the same genocide that our current enemies (in Gaza or Iran) would inflict on us given half a chance.
Whatever one thinks of this psychological profile, one has to admit that it is a powerful one. One that roots itself indelibly in one’s identity and provides basic, rock-solid principles to carry one through life. It is how Dagan can be such a focussed, monomaniacal advocate (or killer) on behalf of his people.
But really when you look at this set of beliefs, it is pathological. It views the Holocaust as an event that happened but never ended. It views every possible threat to the Jewish people as a looming Holocaust. It sanctions grievous acts against our fellow human beings in order to protect us from these imagined dangers.
Here is the illness: the conditions and context in which Israel finds itself now have nothing to with the Holocaust. It has everything to do with where Israel finds itself in the contemporary Middle East. It has to do with the precise set of Arab neighbor states it has and their own political conditions. Israel must come to terms with the real conditions in which it finds itself, and not imagined historical ones which are irrelevant to latter-day circumstances.
If your policies are governed by historical trauma instead of clear-eyed analysis of where you find yourself at the present moment, you are doomed. You will be fighting the battles of 1938 instead of 2011.
The final grave disservice that the Holocaust-obsessed do to contemporary Israel is that they turn today’s enemies into eternal sworn genocidal monsters (i.e. Amalek). You cannot negotiate with a monster. You cannot make peace with a monster. Nazis were monsters. But Palestinians are not monsters. Iranians are not monsters. Neither people seek to annihilate the Jewish people as the Nazis did. Perhaps in their wildest dreams the most extreme among them might harbor such delusions. But rational human beings do not act based on what the most lunatic human beings do or say. They act out of pragmatic self-interest.
We must not let the Bibi Netanyahus or Meir Dagans turn the Israeli-Arab conflict into the Holocaust. This is not a Holy War nor a Crusade nor a fight to prevent the annihilation of the Jewish people (or even Israel). This is a political struggle over land and power. Political conflicts can be resolved. Existential conflicts between good and evil cannot. For the Dagans of this world it is a fight to the death between Israel and its enemies. We must not allow it to become that, because that way lie death and self-destruction.












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