"Why Palestinians Have Time On Their Side"

I agree with most of what Mr. Goldberg writes here, although I do not agree with his main premise, his concern for the survival of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. But is it possible that people like Netanyahu don't see things the way Mr Goldberg sees them? It is quite possible that Israeli politicians, like other politicians in other countries, see only for the short term and think in electoral terms, so this is why they are locked in a short term vision. And while Israel could not afford to be a country like others, it is acting like any other country. Does this mean that they don't see Palestinians as an existential threat, as Mr. Goldberg sees them (and this is quite racist because he is alluding to Palestinian demographic and rights as an exitential threat to Israel)? Of course they see things the same way but they think that as long as they have international support, they will deal with any threat, or any pressure to engage in peace and concessions, the way they dealt with until now: more bloodshed and brute force while Israel will explain to the world that its existence as it is now: without peace, without definite borders, without justice for Palestinians, and with brute force and political instability in the region, is a natural an biblical right for the Jewish people that tremples any other right. And it will take another holocaust for the world to understand.

Meanwhile, Palestinians should take their matters in their own hands, strictly speaking.

By Jeffrey Goldberg

If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning.

I would applaud Netanyahu for including no bold initiatives that would have suggested to the world that Israel is alive to the threat posed by its seemingly eternal occupation of the West Bank.

In fact, I would make support for Netanyahu the foundation stone of my patient campaign to dismantle the world’s only majority-Jewish country. I would support not only Netanyahu, but the far-right parties of his governing coalition, the parties that seem uninterested in democracy and obsessed with planting more Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

The settlements would have my wholehearted backing. I would encourage my brother Palestinians to help build settlements at a brisk pace. I would ask the Israelis to build an even more intricate system of bypass roads on the that would connect Jewish settlements to one another and to Israel proper. I would ask my ostensible allies among the Arab nations to provide interest-free mortgages to Israelis in Tel Aviv, so they could move out to the settlements for some fresh air and a little more yard. And, while I was at it, I would insist that my leaders abort their campaign for United Nations recognition of an independent state of Palestine.

Entanglement

My goal: To hopelessly, ineradicably, entangle the two peoples wedged between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Then I would wait as the Israeli population on the West Bank grew, and grew some more. I would wait until 2017, 50 years after the Six Day War, which ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I would go before the UN and say the following:

"We, the Palestinians, no longer seek a homeland of our own. We recognize the permanence of Israeli occupation, the dominion of the Israeli military and the power of the Israeli economy. So we would like to join them. In the 50 years since the beginning of the ’temporary’ occupation, we have seen hundreds of thousands of Israelis build communities near our own communities. We admire what they have built, and the system of laws that governs their lives. Unlike them, many of us live under Israeli military law but have no say in choosing the Israelis who rule us. So we no longer want statehood. We simply want the vote."

And this, of course, would bring about the end of Israel.

Apartheid State

Either the Jews of Israel would grant the Palestinians the vote, at which point their country would lose its Jewish majority and its identity as a refuge for the Jewish people, or it would deny them the vote, and become an apartheid state. The latter option is untenable, of course: Many Jewish Israelis would be repulsed by this thought; other nations that already consider Israel a pariah would now have just cause; and Israel would lose its last remaining friend, the U.S., because no American -- including and especially young American Jews -- would identify with a country reminiscent of pre-Mandela South Africa

If Netanyahu had been thinking strategically, he might have realized this when he went before Congress this morning. And he might have done something bold: Acknowledge that the age of Jewish settlement is over. He did mention, fleetingly, that certain settlements would be set adrift in a theoretical peace deal. But he seemed unaware that he was delivering a speech that could easily have been given 10 years ago.

It is not 10 years ago. Israel is now 10 years closer to achieving full pariah status. And -- in part because the Palestinians lack the patience to pursue a strategy of gradual, irreversible entanglement -- a moment of truth for Israel is rapidly approaching.

UN Vote

The Palestinians are seeking a UN vote in September on independence. They will prevail in the General Assembly, though not in the Security Council Barack Obama, with whom Netanyahu just picked a fight, will have to spend a good amount of political capital to stymie the Palestinian campaign, even though he appears to have nothing but contempt for Netanyahu’s lack of vision.

But American opposition to this unilateral declaration will be in many ways immaterial. Israel will soon enough be seen by most of the world as the occupier not of disputed territory but of a foreign country. The Palestinians will wake up to find that a General Assembly vote did not, in fact, give them true independence. And then there will be an explosion.

The Palestinians who are watching Yemenis, Libyans and Syrians fighting for their freedom will soon be inspired to once again take up their own fight.

Existential Threats

Netanyahu, who understands the existential threat posed by Iran, does not seem to understand the nature of this other existential threat. His five predecessors as prime minister -- including Ariel Sharon, whose heart did not bleed for Palestinians -- understood it. President Obama understands it, too.

"The number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories," Obama told members of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, on May 22. "This will make it harder and harder, without a peace deal, to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state."

An eternal truth of Middle East politics is that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Lately, though, this has become an Israeli specialty. If Israel misses the chance this year to set the Palestinians on a course toward independence, it will jeopardize its future as a Jewish democracy.

A Magnanimous Vision

Yes, it will be dangerous for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, or anything close. The potential merger between Hamas and the more moderate Fatah is cause for despair, but it should spur Netanyahu to try to split the moderates from the radicals by offering a magnanimous vision for peace. He should realize that it will be fatal for Israel to maintain control over millions of Palestinians who seek what the people of Yemen and Libya and Syria seek: freedom.

Absent any hope of progress, the Palestinians will do what they can to undermine Israel. But all they have to do is wait.

The power of satire

When rational discourse becomes impossible, locked in double standards, threats, and guilt, only satire can rescue us from idiocy and bigotry. Thanks to Wolfie and Stef for the links.

"Still, the bulk of my sympathies are with whatever group suffers the most, regardless of how much of the problem is their own damned fault. To feel otherwise would be inhuman. Sometimes it feels as if the Palestinians are only one Gandhi away from fixing their problems. But he’d need to be bulletproof."

"I was happy to hear that NYC didn't allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad to place a wreath at the WTC site. And I was happy that Columbia University is rescinding the offer to let him speak. If you let a guy like that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom of speech...

...Ahmadinejad also called the holocaust a "myth." Fuck him! A myth is something a society uses to frame their understanding of their world, and act accordingly. It's not as if the world created a whole new country because of holocaust guilt and gives it a free pass no matter what it does. That's Iranian crazy talk. Ahmadinejad can blow me.

...Those Iranians need to learn from the American example. In this country, if the clear majority of the public opposes the continuation of a war, our leaders will tell us we're terrorist-humping idiots and do whatever they damn well please. They might even increase our taxes to do it. That's called leadership."

Israel's unexpected Spinoff from a holocaust trial

JERUSALEM, Sept. 5 — It was one of Israel’s dirty little secrets. In the early 1960s, as Israelis were being exposed for the first time to the shocking testimonies of Holocaust survivors at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a series of pornographic pocket books called Stalags, based on Nazi themes, became best sellers throughout the land.

Read under the table by a generation of pubescent Israelis, often the children of survivors, the Stalags were named for the World War II prisoner-of-war camps in which they were set. The books told perverse tales of captured American or British pilots being abused by sadistic female SS officers outfitted with whips and boots. The plot usually ended with the male protagonists taking revenge, by raping and killing their tormentors."

The correction at the end of the article has to be absolutely read...

Forgetting Gaza

I woke up early this morning at the sound of a persistent rain. I browsed the news. JSF had a post on Gaza. I read it, went to the source article and asked myself: Are we forgetting Gaza ?

We are inclined to forget what bothers us, to clean our memory from painful emotions. This can do some good when it is related to our own suffering, it is salutary. However, it cannot do any good for us when it is related to the suffering of others because our conscience will come back to haunt us. The remorse will transfer what we consider the suffering of others and makes it our own, in other forms, much worse, shame, guilt, what have we done ? What have they done in our names ? This is of course what will happen for those who have conscience, for those of us who consider themselves as part of Humanity.

The whole world has become morally lethargic. The amount of suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza is unbearable, Gaza is a Warsaw ghetto where there is no income, no electricity, no normal medical care, no food, only bullets and brutality and bombings provided on a daily basis by the zionist state. The world is doing nothing, just as the world did nothing when Jews suffered in the Warsaw ghetto and in Nazi concentration camps. Do we want this tragedy to come back and haunt us like the tragedy of the Jews during WWII and the other large scale human tragedies that happened and are still happening before our eyes ?

I think the more we allow tragedies to happen, the more we become 'tolerant' to the suffering of others, the more we become morally inhibited and desensitisised, loosing our conscience and our humanity. What have we done for the Rwandan tragedy, the Armenian tragedy, the Bosnian tragedy, the south African tragedy, the ongoing ME tragegdies in Iraq and Lebanon, the African continent many tragedies, the Native American tragedy, the black people tragedy, the New Orleans tragedy ? We let them happen.

Tears are springing in my eyes as I am writing. In ten minutes, I will stand and start my day; go to the kitchen, prepare the coffee, eat my breakfast with my family, walk the dog, shop for the week afterward, see my father, have my spanish lesson, dine with friends this evening and Gaza will be forgotten...One of the biggest human tragedy of our time will have the back seat in my memory, for the day. It will return probably at night and then next morning when I will read the news, more bombings, more killings, more suffering and no indignation, just a downward spirale of violence and death inflicted by Israel wrongly in the name of past Jewish suffering.

I wish holocaust survivors can stand united and say: ''Not in our names' . In the present moral and political disengagement of the international community and of individual consciences from Gaza and the Palestinian territories, this will be the most effective thing to do to stop the ineluctable. I guess they don't know what is being done in their name.

''How long will the "international community" allow the slaughter to continue? The cruel repression of the occupied territories, and of Gaza in particular, is one of the most scandalous in the world today. It is the blackest stain on Israel's patchy record as a would-be democratic state.'' writes Patrick Seale. Read the whole article...