In the run-up to the ghastly attacks of October 7 — 50 years and a day after the 1973 Yom Kippur War — Israel made many mistakes. Israel’s high-tech cyber intelligence failed. So did the new watchtowers and automatic systems. More important than Israel’s intelligence failure is its conceptual failure, which is similar to 1973.

The heads of the military have accepted responsibility for the October 7 failure. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has not. He is incapable of accepting mistakes. Bibi propped up Hamas to weaken Fatah. He killed the two-state solution. He has been centralizing power for a while and caused major divisions in Israeli society through his judicial reforms.

Note that Israel does not have a constitution. The Israeli Declaration of Independence dated May 14, 1948 promised to adopt a constitution by October 1 that year. Yet David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, did not adopt one because of the hot button-issue regarding the relationship between religion and the state.

So, Israel does not have a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights. Neither does it have a clear separation of power. There is no independent executive, and the legislature is unicameral. So, whatever party or coalition holds the majority in the sole chamber of the legislature — the Israeli parliament Knesset — wields unlimited legislative and executive power. The only check on the executive is the judiciary, whose rights and powers can technically be modified with a simple act of legislation. However, some laws have acquired a constitutional nature by tradition. These are seen as the bedrock of Israeli democracy.

Israel’s struggling democracy

Between 2019 and 2021, Israel went through a period of electoral turmoil. Four elections failed to produce a clear majority in the Knesset. Finally, in 2022, Bibi made a spectacular and his right-wing coalition won a majority.

Likud, Bibi’s party, is a secular Zionist party. Its coalition partners are far-right, religious Zionist parties. Among these was Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a former member of the banned Kach party. Ben-Gvir was not allowed to serve in the military because of racism. Now he is the minister of national security.

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, wrote “the Decisive Plan,” calling for the outright annexation of the West Bank. Of the cabinet ministers, nine, including Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, hail from settlements in the occupied West Bank, which international law deems illegal.

A large proportion of the support for Bibi’s coalition comes from Haredis, ultra-Orthodox Jews. They now comprise 13.3% of the Israeli population and many of them are religious zealots. Haredis tend not to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and do not pay taxes either. Their religious education is subsidized by the state. Haredis tend to have more children than secular Jews and their electoral power is growing. 

Bibi’s coalition is the most right-wing in Israeli history. Thanks to the proportional representation system, members of many parties get elected to the Knesset. Therefore, coalitions tend to form governments because it is improbable for a single party to achieve a majority. In a historical first, Bibi’s coalition has no centrist party. Hence, there is no moderating influence on his government. The center of gravity in Israeli politics has strikingly moved to the right.

Not only is Bibi constrained by his allies but also Likud has lurched to the right. Its traditional liberal values have all but disappeared. Bibi’s winning coalition was not known for its competence though and the Hamas attacks brought all the failings of this government into sharp focus.

After the October 7 attacks, Bibi brought the center-right Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot into a national unity government of sorts. Both men are former chiefs of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and bring an element of moderation, competence and responsibility into the war cabinet.

Note that Bibi is no fool. He was a capable finance minister and remains a great rhetorician. But his divide-and-rule policy of weakening Fatah and propping up Hamas has backfired spectacularly. In addition, he is corrupt. Hounded by three separate corruption cases, Bibi must remain in power in order to keep the judiciary at bay. Hence, he has taken a hatchet to the judiciary’s powers in order to retain a get-out-of-jail-free card. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, ended up in jail over far lighter charges and Bibi does not want to follow in Olmert’s footsteps.

Israel’s response to the war

On the eve of the Hamas attack, the three IDF battalions tasked with guarding the Gaza border were away. They had been called to the West Bank in order to protect religious devotees celebrating Simchat Torah. If they had not been away, the attack might not have been such a tragic catastrophe.

This reallocation of IDF troops to the West Bank is part of a bigger issue. The IDF is meant to defend Israel from its foreign foes. Instead, it has been transformed largely into a police force tasked with keeping the Palestinians in check. Preoccupied with police duties, the IDF is no longer as effective as a military as it once was in the past.

Lack of troops may have exacerbated the problem, but this does not mean that more troops are the solution. Israel is now raising an army to fight Hamas. Overnight bombing has already caused “total chaos” and ground forces are “expanding their operations.” But it is implausible that Israel could destroy Hamas successfully. Aside from their 30,000 fighters, Hamas is an idea. Its fighters are indoctrinated diehards, and they will not give up because they are defeated on the ground. So, a ground invasion would be a mistake; it would gain Israel little but cost a high number of Israeli and Gazan lives.

There are some signs that Israel is indeed hesitating to carry out a full ground attack. Perhaps Israel is heeding the pleas by its US ally not to invade Gaza and to respect international law.

What are Israel’s options?

So what can be done? A ceasefire is the way forward. However, Hamas cannot remain in control of Gaza. This organization has to be removed and power transferred to a competent entity. Maybe the Palestinian Authority can do it, but its position is weak. An international regime seems a better alternative. It could take over the administration of Gaza. The United Nations and the Arab League would provide the institutional basis to achieve this alternative, perhaps with the cooperation of individual Arab states, such as Egypt, the Gulf States and Jordan.

We should remember that, in 2002, the Arab League unanimously adopted the Arab Peace Initiative. This offered Israel full recognition and normalization of relations in exchange for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories, the establishment of a Palestinian state, and an agreed-upon resolution to the Palestinian refugee crisis. This ought to be the basis of a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. No Israeli administration, however, has taken this initiative seriously.

Does the international community still have the unity and the ability to push for peace in Palestine? In a way, it doesn’t matter. It must do so, or everyone will feel the impact of ongoing conflict. The normalization of ties between Israel and Egypt may not have been possible without the then US president Jimmy Carter’s intervention. Even against seemingly impossible odds, the world can and must achieve something, if leaders are determined enough.

Perhaps the world cannot come together because the conflict is in the interests of many parties. In particular, Russia and China benefit from the distraction. Both powers get breathing room if US attention is dispersed and its resources are allocated to the eastern Mediterranean. So, the principal actor who still has the motive and the ability to act is the US. As the global superpower and closest Israeli ally, the US cannot renege from its responsibility. The US must put pressure on Israel.

The truth is that there are no easy options. It would be lovely if we could just nicely ask Hamas to leave. That is not an option. However, even Hamas does not want an all-out war that could last years, even decades. If an international regime were the only other option, it is conceivable that Hamas might agree. Something similar has happened in the past. In 1982, Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah was convinced to pack up his bags and leave from Lebanon for Tunis.

Hamas may be fanatical, but we do not understand it as well as we think we do. Like all human beings, they are complicated, and they could perhaps be convinced to take a different tack. Hamas might not have predicted either the success of their attack or the ferocity of the Israeli response. Hamas leaders might very well be second-guessing their strategy.

If things do not get better, they could get much worse. It will not be World War III, since Russia and China are aloof from the conflict. But Hezbollah could get involved. Discontent with Arab monarchs created by anger over the Palestine issue could lead to uprisings in the name, not of democracy, but of Islamism. Mobs could challenge the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its fall could trigger a chain reaction across the region. This situation, thus. could spiral much further out of control, leading to loss of life and misery across the region.

If a ceasefire comes soon, and Hamas releases its Israeli hostages, the belligerents could take the first step toward peace. Then, we will need to create a new post-conflict reality that will involve not only Israel and Palestine but also the Arab world and the US. Notably, all actors would need to make wise decisions.

[ and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The US Must Commit to Protecting Central Americans

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On June 13, 2021, a new generation had a chance to celebrate in that same square as a new government took charge of Israel. Many of them participated in ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahu, the now-former prime minister, over the past year as he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. These Israelis came to celebrate another “dawn of a new day,” though with less ambitious goals.

The New Government

There is nothing in the new government’s guidelines about what to do concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing to celebrate.

Israel is embarking on a new venture, perhaps unprecedented in the annals of international political history. The country now has a right-center-left coalition government whose goal is to restore at least a semblance of sanity, democratic norms and civil discourse to a highly polarized society. In just two years, Israel has held four elections without a decisive result that ate away at the very foundations of Israeli democracy, causing a loss of faith in the electoral process.

As prime minister for 12 years, Netanyahu became more illiberal, building alliances with other corrupt, illiberal allies such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi and Viktor Orban. In response, his opponents in Israeli society and the Knesset grew to a crescendo. There is no question that the people who took to the streets as Netanyahu’s corruption trial began earlier this year provided the tailwind for the possibility of establishing this unusual “government of change.”

Progressive Israelis

So, what is there to celebrate, particularly from the point of view of a progressive Israeli? The first and most important thing is that Netanyahu is gone, at least for the foreseeable future. His presence in the seat of power had dominated the Israeli discourse and body politic. Removing him from power through the ballot box has opened up space for new ideas and leaders to emerge.

In what may potentially be a revolution in Israeli politics, an Arab party has joined the ruling coalition. The United Arab Party (UAR), led by Mansour Abbas, is a full-fledged partner in a broad group of parties in the Knesset. The more progressive Joint Arab List, led by Ayman Odeh, would have been a better fit, but Benny Gantz squandered that opportunity in 2020. Gantz, the Blue and White leader, failed to form a coalition with their support after the elections last year.

Still, the UAR, though an Islamist party, is not necessarily identifiable with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, despite claims in the media. Its original leader, Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish, broke away from the northern branch of the movement when he decided the party should reject violence and participate in Israeli politics. He also promoted Jewish-Arab civic cooperation and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. However, it is not clear how ready the movement currently is to help promote peace talks.

It is also important that, for the first time in 20 years, the left-wing Meretz party is in the coalition, with three ministers in the government. The party was a primary partner to the efforts of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in the 1990s, which led to the Oslo agreement breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Most importantly, Esawi Frej, an Arab-Israeli from the town of Kfar Kassim, is the minister for regional cooperation. Frej, a member of the Knesset for Meretz, is only the second Muslim minister in Israeli history. He may be able to use that position to try to leverage the Israeli agreements signed in 2020 with four Arab countries — coupled with the existing treaties with Egypt and Jordan — to create positive movement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

Naftali Bennett

When it comes to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, while he is apparently not corrupt like Netanyahu, I don’t have many expectations. It is highly doubtful that any of those celebrating in Rabin Square voted for his right-wing nationalist party, Yamina. Fortunately, Bennett will not be able to act upon any of the ideas he has previously promoted — including the annexation of Area C of the West Bank, which makes up 60% of the Palestinian territory — since Yamina holds only six out of the 61 seats in the Knesset that provided the thin majority for the new government. Though without those seats, the government could not have been formed. 

Bennett is bound by an agreement with Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party. As the architect of the “government of change” coalition with 17 seats in the Knesset, Lapid will replace Bennett as prime minister in August 2023 in a power-sharing agreement and can veto any of the current leader’s ideas.

My former neighbor, journalist Ran Adelist, recently wrote that he has a dream that Bennett — a religious-nationalist who lives in the suburban town of Ra’anana with his secular wife — will see the light and understand that the only rational way to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is to accept the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That view was shared by journalist Noga Tarnopolsky, who in a New York Times described a surprising conversation she had with Bennett before he became prime minister. One can only hope.

But perhaps there is a possibility of more than just hope. Lapid, who will be foreign minister for the first two years before becoming prime minister, at a conference organized by Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.”I believe that a breakthrough on the Iranian issue depends on the Palestinian issue.  We need to work to advance a diplomatic agreement with the Palestinians, only as part of a regional discussion,” he said. “Can we separate the Iranian problem from the Palestinian problem? Without progress vis-à-vis the Palestinians, can we enlist the [support of] the Saudi public, the U.S. Congress, American Jewry, the European Union, and money from the Gulf states? Netanyahu says we can. I tell you we can’t. Most security officials say we can’t.”

So, maybe Lapid, as foreign minister and then as prime minister, together with Frej as minister for regional cooperation and others, can initiate some moves in that direction. The US government, the EU, the Gulf states and the liberal majority of American Jewry should take notice and help initiate some much-needed progress. One thing is clear: There can be no illusions that the Palestinian question can be ignored, as was clearly demonstrated by the recent events in Jerusalem and the 11-days of fighting we just went through. 

Although the Knesset session that confirmed the new government was a disgrace — interrupted by constant inflammatory heckling by back-benchers from Netanyahu’s Likud, the extreme-right Religious Zionist Party and the ultra-Orthodox — at least we didn’t have a Capitol Hill-style insurrection in Israel. Even Netanyahu, who vowed to do everything to overthrow the government and return to the premiership, said that the votes by members of the Knesset were counted accurately. His complaint was that his erstwhile right-wing colleagues from Yamina, the New Hope party and Yisrael Beiteinu had deceived their voters and joined together to form “a leftwing government.”  

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Is This the Dawn of a New Day in Israel? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The last crisis in 2020 was the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused opposition leader Benny Gantz to cave in and to form a national unity government with Netanyahu. Now, Netanyahu has a new national emergency with the conflict in Gaza. This has led Naftali Bennet, leader of the right-wing Yamina party, to abandon to form an government with Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid, the largest opposition in Israel. Yamina and Yesh Atid have attempted to combine with Gantz’s Blue and White, the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties, and the United Arab List to reach a 61-seat majority in the Knesset.

The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

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Netanyahu may not have planned the exact scenario of the current conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza, but his policies laid the foundation for it. First, he has refused to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, Netanyahu has preferred to bolster divisions between the Palestinian factions of Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.

There is no chance that Netanyahu would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to overthrow the Hamas government in Gaza. The prime minister wants the division amongst the Palestinians to continue. Netanyahu is content with having Qatar — which did not join the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in recognizing Israel in 2020 — prop up Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

Evictions in Sheikh Jarrah

Other Israeli decisions connected to East Jerusalem and its Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have led to the multiple crises now taking place.

The first spark that lit the flame was the decision by Israeli police to set up barricades toward the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City. Since that is a place where many young Palestinians gather in the evening after breaking their fasts, it led to anger and protest — some violent. Kobi Shabtai, the novice police commissioner, falsely claimed this was a longstanding policy to prevent crowding. He later the ban.

This was followed by clashes in East Jerusalem inside a compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. Israeli police made another major mistake of firing stun into Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is inside the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. This led to outrage amongst Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and Israeli-Arab citizens in Israel.

The second spark was due to right-wing Israeli extremists attempting to evict Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Jewish settlers. These Palestinian families became refugees in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and were to Sheikh Jarrah in 1956 after the Jordanian government, which controlled East Jerusalem at the time, built homes for them.

An extremely unfair law permits Israelis to try to reclaim property in East Jerusalem that was held by Jews before 1948. Yet Palestinians are not allowed to do the same with property they once owned in West Jerusalem. A hearing over the legality of the eviction attempts was due to be heard by the Israeli Supreme Court on May 10. The case has since been postponed for a month at the request of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

With the events on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and the evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the focus is on Netanyahu. To reach a majority in the Knesset, the prime minister encouraged the newly-elected Itamar Ben-Gvir — a follower of the extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane — and his Jewish Power Party to join forces with Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism, a nationalist, far-right party.

Ben-Gvir has been by the Israeli police chief of supporting young, right-wing extremists who attacked Palestinians in the Old City and in Sheikh Jarrah last week. “The person who is responsible for this intifada [uprising] is Itamar Ben Gvir. It started with the Lehava protest at Damascus Gate,” Shabtai said. “It continued with provocations in Sheikh Jarrah, and now he is moving around with Lehava activists.”

To his credit, even Netanyahu realized that the situation in Jerusalem was at risk of turning ugly. This year, just before what Israelis call the “Jerusalem Day Flag March,” marking the capture of the Old City and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinians marked Laylat al-Qadr (night of decree), one of the holiest nights in Ramadan and the Islamic calendar. On May 10, thousands of young, right-wing Israelis were scheduled to march through Damascus Gate while taunting Palestinians in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. Instead, it was via the Jaffa Gate adjacent to West Jerusalem.

Uncertainty for Hamas

This is where Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, comes into the picture. Hamas has been losing popularity in Gaza because of the dire conditions that Palestinian face there. In May and July, Palestinians were due to vote in legislative and presidential elections, respectively. While the elections have been by President Abbas, who blamed Israel for uncertainty about whether Palestinian elections could take place in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the Hamas leadership was concerned.

On the one hand, it was predicted that Hamas might benefit from the weakness of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. Fatah has into three groups for the elections, with Abbas part of the main one. On the other hand, Nasser al-Qudwa’s to run a separate list from Fatah poses a risk to Hamas. Qudwa, a senior diplomat who was sacked by Fatah in March, is the nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Qudwa represents a group led by Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader who is currently in an Israeli prison and is “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela,” while a third Fatah list is led by , an exiled rival of Abbas who is originally from Gaza.

An election for the Palestinians presents uncertainty for both Fatah and Hamas. Therefore, Hamas decided to present itself as the guardian of Jerusalem and of Al-Aqsa Mosque, hoping to take advantage of Palestinian disappointment at the postponement of elections by Abbas. Hamas leaders threatened Israel by saying unless its police forces withdrew from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound and from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, they would fire rockets on Jerusalem. Most observers thought this was a bluff, since it was assumed that Hamas wouldn’t shoot missiles at Jerusalem out of fear they might hit Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

It turns out that they weren’t bluffing. Ever since this round of deadly clashes began on May 10, Hamas militants have kept their word. A few nights ago, Hamas said it would fire rockets toward Tel Aviv in retaliation for IDF actions during the day. Minutes after midnight, the anti-missile alert sirens sounded and 2 million people in the greater Tel Aviv area headed into bomb shelters, including my family and neighbors.  

By firing indiscriminately at a civilian population, Hamas is committing war crimes. Any government facing such a situation would feel compelled to respond. Of course, since the Israeli army is far more powerful than Hamas forces — and because Gaza is densely populated — there are many more Palestinian casualties than Israeli. At the weekend, Haaretz, an Israeli daily, published an article with the headline: “Israeli killed by rocket; IDF destroys media offices, kills families in Gaza.” The Israeli on May 15 after a “barrage of rocket fire targeted Tel Aviv.” On the same day, Hamas “it had fired dozens of rockets at central Israel in response to the killing of eight children and two women, all members of the same family, in a [strike] on the Al-Shate refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.” As the exchange of fire enters its second week, the death toll at the time of publishing stands at 212 in Gaza, including 61 children. In Israel, 10 people have died, including a 10-year-old Israeli-Arab girl.

By evicting families and building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, Israel is also committing war crimes. This includes Israeli attempts to displace Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. Israel’s disproportionate use of military force to defend itself — though justifiably — against repeated rocket fire is also problematic.

Violence on the Street

The worst byproduct of the current situation is perhaps the inter-communal conflict in Israel that has evolved as a result of the broader crisis. This is particularly in the mixed Jewish and Arab cities of Acre, Lod, Ramla, Jaffa and other locations such as Jerusalem.

This is tragic given the progress that has been made in recent years with Jewish-Arab cooperation and partnership inside Israel. To tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli-Arab medical personnel have taken on a central role. In football, Israeli-Arabs have played a prominent part. In politics, the Joint List, an alliance of Arab-majority parties, recommended Gantz for the role of prime minister in 2020. Now, the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas could play a decisive role in the possible formation of an alternative Israeli government.

All of this has been undermined in a few violent weeks. It was as if we suddenly had a throwback to the murderous intercommunal strife that occurred in 1921, 1929 and 1936 in the British Mandate of Palestine before the state of Israel was created. Fortunately, there is a strong foundation for the revival and continuation of Jewish-Arab cooperation within Israel. Young people in Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab grassroots movement, have taken to the streets in protest. Mayors of joint and neighboring municipalities have also been active in trying to heal the social wounds.

Time for a Plan

Israelis and Palestinians will need to find the strength as societies to deal with the current crisis and to develop paths toward internal solidarity and a cross-border resolution of the conflict. It is equally important that the international community takes an active role. World powers have played a major role in the region in modern times — from the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate of Palestine and the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution to create two states, Arab and Jewish. Now, they cannot stand aside and watch. They must play a part in defusing the current violence and creating the foundations for a more fundamental resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Washington, the Biden administration, which has a lot on its plate domestically, had hoped it could ignore the Middle East conflict. That is clearly not working. US President Joe Biden has even delayed designating a new American ambassador to Israel. He has also not yet reopened a US consulate in Jerusalem to serve as an address for American communication with the Palestinians. These are two simple steps that should urgently be taken.

In addition, the Americans can revive the role of the Middle East Quartet — which is made up of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — in seeking to advance a resolution of the conflict. The Arab world can bring back and activate the Arab Peace Initiative. Proposed by Saudi Arabia and confirmed at the Arab League’s 2002 summit in Beirut, the plan offers Israel recognition, peace and normalized relations with the Arab world, backed by all Muslim-majority countries. In exchange, a Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the state of Israel, with small, mutually agreed-upon land swaps.

When it comes to Jerusalem, it would perhaps be best to return to the original partition plan of 1947. According to the UN General Assembly’s decision, a Jewish state and an Arab state were to be established, while Jerusalem was to be an international city. While the situation today is completely different from that plan 74 years ago, the conflict around the Old City and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif — which contains the sites considered holy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam — could be neutralized by making it an area shared by all peoples. Jerusalem would be what Jordan’s late King Hussein called “God’s city.” 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Netanyahu and Hamas Are Playing a Deadly Game appeared first on 51�Թ�.

This was a declaration which promised that: “The state of Israel will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of shrines and holy places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” This was meant to be a country that has no room for a biased nation-state law that deprives 20% of its citizens of equal rights before the law, and rather one that enables both peoples living here to have an equal right to national self-determination.

In each of these illiberal democracies, there are pro-democracy forces struggling to turn the tide, with the 2020 presidential elections in the US and the hope that Trump will be defeated being the pinnacle of the struggle.

In Israel, there is a broad coalition of forces who are challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to steadily undermine Israeli democracy, an independent judiciary, civil liberties and freedom of media, artistic and religious expression. These are Israelis who stand for uncorrupt decency. Those who are reviving hope for a society based upon a greater degree of social justice — one that genuinely aspires and initiates efforts to end 51 years of rule over our Palestinian neighbors via a peace agreement based upon a viable two-state solution.

The polls suggest that Netanyahu is not guaranteed victory. As with the first election in April, he may be unable to put together a repeat of his right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition.

Benny Gantz: The Anti-Bibi

It appears that the alternative to Bibi is the anti-Bibi: Benny Gantz, leader of the new Blue and White Party. Gantz does not have the intellect, the education, charisma, media skills, economic know-how, ability in English and the experience that Netanyahu has. In the April elections, he was the new face in town who offered the promise of change based on decency, togetherness and moderation, rather than bitter divisiveness. I was afraid that the novelty would have worn off in the second round, but according to the polls, Gantz and the Blue and White Party are still running neck and neck with Bibi’s Likud.

Gantz does not inspire, is sometimes inarticulate and is ambiguous about his positions. Yet he broadcasts a sense of decency, solidity and relative humility, which is a refreshing change from what we currently have in Israel. No one can question his security credentials, and when he says he wants to defend democracy and change the nation-state law, it sounds like he means it. 

Until now, Gantz and his colleagues have run an almost nonexistent campaign. However his recent declaration that he aspires to form a liberal, secular coalition after the election has resonated strongly, though it would be together with Likud, minus Netanyahu as its leader. The fact he also says that the Joint Arab List would not be a partner in his coalition is very problematic, though unlike before April, Gantz is reaching out to the Arab public.

In an anti-nation state law demonstration in Tel Aviv after the first round of elections, Gantz joined his co-leaders in supporting the appearance of Joint List leader Ayman Odeh at the protest, overriding the opposition of his fellow leader, former Likud member Moshe Ya’alon.

There are three other parties in the active opposition to the left of Netanyahu.

Ehud Barak: The Most Effective Campaigner

The Democratic Union — an amalgam of Meretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s fledgling party, and the Labor breakaway and 2011 social protest leader Stav Shaffir. The union is chaired by Meretz leader and social democrat Nitzan Horowitz, the first gay leader of a political party in Israel. 

Although they both served as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Barak is everything that Gantz isn’t. As the fiery anti-Bibi who once served as his defense minister, Barak is the only politician to defeat Netanyahu, back in 1999. He also served as his commander in the army and is the most potent and articulate critic of the prime minister’s domestic policies. He says those policies are the only existential threat to Israel today, undermining the country’s democratic foundations.

Barak doesn’t shy away from using the terms and to describes elements of the Israeli reality. He advocates a two-state solution with mutually-agreed-upon border rectifications of 4-5% that would enable 80% of the settlers to remain within the borders of the sovereign state of Israel. This is based on the analysis of Shaul Arieli, who arrived at this conclusion via negotiations with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, thus counteracting Barak’s “” claim in 2000. (Though Barak once, unwisely, that if negotiations fail, then unilateral disengagement from the West Bank and setting of temporary borders should be considered.) Barak also advocates that the state of Israel should be based upon the principles of the declaration of independence, which should be enshrined in a constitution promised back in 1948 “within 10 months.”

Unfortunately, many people are allergic to Barak for reasons of his own creation, such as blaming the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000 on the Palestinians while saying that there is “no partner” for peace; the fact that he split from the Labor Party to become defense minister in 2011; and that he became quite wealthy in his post-political career, though without any evidence of corruption. All true, but he is still the most effective campaigner against Netanyahu in the current round of elections.

Amir Peretz’s Gamble

The Labor Party led by Amir Peretz — the former Sderot mayor, Histadrut head and defense minister — has formed an alliance with the Gesher Party led by Orly Levy-Abekasis, who was previously a member of the Knesset for Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.��Many were upset by the fact that Peretz didn’t join together with Meretz and Barak to form a united left front.

At a forum on September 6 organized by Women Waging Peace, Peretz, who also has a history of abandoning Labor for Tzipi Livni’s centrist Hatnua Party, said he was offered the possibility of being the leader of a united left party that might have gotten 12 seats in the Knesset. “What would have that gotten us?” he exclaimed, saying that by teaming up with Levy-Abekasis, he could wean away two seats from the Likud from development town Mizrachi voters and that it would change things. Running on a platform that focuses on social issues, one can only hope that his gamble is successful.

The Importance of the Arab Vote

The Joint List composed of four Arab parties — Hadash, Ta’al, Ra’am and Balad — is running again, after disastrously splitting into two-party amalgams in the April elections. This led to a decline in Knesset representation from 13 to 10 seats and, in voting percentage among Israeli-Arab citizens, from 64% to 49%. If all Arabs voted — almost 20% of the population — they could have 20 to 25 seats in the Knesset and would be the deciding factor in the left-right balance in Israel. 

At this stage, the polls do not suggest that they will even return to the 13 seats they had in 2015, but they’re working on it. Joint List Chair Ayman Udeh’s declaration of a readiness to join a center-left coalition was called for and welcomed by the Democratic Union, but unfortunately not by Gantz, who is still trying to get votes from the right.

The keys to a center-left victory are:

1) A significant increase in the Arab vote;

2) That Peretz and Labor will succeed to get at least two to three seats from people in the outlying peripheral towns who previously voted right;

3) And that all the center-left, Blue and White, Democratic Union, Labor-Gesher and the Joint List will succeed to GOTV — get out the vote — mobilizing all their potential supporters to actually vote and not give in to despair or indifference. The Tel Aviv buses are filled with billboards of Horowitz-Barak-Shaffir calling on their constituents to vote for victory.

I will be voting for the Democratic Union because it promises to defend all of Israel’s democratic institutions, calls for Israeli peace initiatives to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians, the separation of religion and state, and declares unequivocally that under no circumstances will it sit in a coalition with Likud — with or without Netanyahu. It’s also interesting to see that Rabbi Gilad Kariv, president of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, is number 11 on the Democratic Union list. If he gets into the Knesset, it will create a serious challenge to the attempt by Orthodox representatives to monopolize the religious discourse in Israel.

However, a vote for any of the opposition parties is a vote for saving Israeli democracy. Despite claims to the contrary, it is not the biggest party that counts, but the total votes for the entire bloc. We have to aim at reaching a situation where the center-left has a majority of 61 seats. The best-case scenario is a center-left government — unlikely though not totally impossible — but even a national unity government without Benjamin Netanyahu, with Lieberman’s right-wing secular Yisrael Beiteinu party as the glue, will be a step forward.

Recently, for the first time in many years, I heard on the radio Bob Dylan singing his 1964 song, “,” which inspired my generation back in the 60s to believe that it was possible that, “The first one now, will later be last.”

With a week to go, we should all repeat Barack Obama’s from 2008: “Yes we can!”

*[A version of this article was originally published on The Times of Israel’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can Benjamin Netanyahu Be Defeated? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

After all, they are members of Congress and the Israeli ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, one of the prime minister’s closest associates, had said, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress into Israel.” Tlaib had also said she wanted to visit her grandmother in the West Bank, and Netanyahu was surely going to be empathetic to that understandable wish.

But on second thought, it was predictable. Netanyahu has built his entire political career based on fanning the flames of fear. The left “has forgotten what it means to be Jews,” ISIS, Iran, BDS, always a new threat, which requires us to be strong, uncompromising and to elect a strong, articulate leader who really knows how to speak good English to the rest of the world. Perhaps Netanyahu didn’t exactly have a good relationship with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but with US President Donald Trump — a conservative like himself — and other nationalist leaders like Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Jair Bolsonaro, no problem.

Netanyahu is intelligent, well-read and undoubtedly understands that, as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said last week at a forum on national security organized by the Council for Peace and Security, “Israel is facing no external existential threat.” After all, Israel has the fourth or fifth strongest army in the world, backed by an estimated 80 to 200 nuclear weapons (according to foreign sources); it has a peace treaty with Jordan and Egypt, its major adversary in three wars; and the Syrian and Iraqi armies have fallen apart, so what’s left: Iran?

As Gadi Eisenkott, the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said, to his knowledge, “for the past 1,400 years, the Iranians have never attacked another country.” The Iranians have been attacked many times, most recently by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s, and what they are primarily interested in is defending their regime.

The Arab and Muslim World Is Ready to Accept Israel

And let’s not forget the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, launched at the Arab League Summit in Beirut and since reconfirmed many times, in which all 22 Arab states offer Israel peace and normal relations — embassies and all. This is in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, with slight mutual border rectifications that will enable 80% of the Israeli settlers to remain where they are, and a mutually-agreed solution for the Palestinian refugee problem. That means the Israeli government has to agree to the number that will be allowed to return, which will undoubtedly be a small percentage.

The 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have their support for the . Even Iranian leaders have said repeatedly that they will accept whatever agreement is acceptable to the Palestinians, while the official position of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is to support a two-state solution.

It’s not as if Israel didn’t have enemies. The fact is that the Arab world did not accept the UN Partition Plan in 1947 to establish a Jewish and an Arab state in Mandatory Palestine and attacked the fledgling Israeli state. Egypt and Syria also attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, though that conflict could have been avoided if Prime Minister Golda Meir had responded to Egyptian overtures before violence broke out. In 1991, Saddam fired 42 Scud missiles against Israel when he was attacked by coalition forces led by the US. And there are still those today who would wish that Israel would disappear.

But today there are no enemies threatening the existence of the Israeli state, and the Arab world is ready to accept it as an integral part of the Middle East.

BDS Has Had No Impact on Israel

And the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS)? Maybe it makes activists feel good that they are doing something against the occupation, and perhaps some even think it will help eliminate the state of Israel. Yet ask any Israeli economist and they will say that BDS has had virtually no impact on the Israeli economy or society, and it won’t in the future.

As a former EU ambassador to Israel explained when asked why the European Union and its member countries don’t do more to pressure Israel to end the occupation, his response was that “it won’t happen.” Why? Because Israel has too much to offer, including military intelligence and know-how, knowledge of how to deal with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, hi-tech expertise, etc.

Tlaib and Omar have expressed support for BDS. They have also recognized Israel’s right to exist, but without the occupation. There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Many Israelis share that view.

Unfortunately, backtracking is not a new Netanyahu trait. He did the same thing when an agreement was reached with the United Nations and third-party countries about a solution to the problem of 37,000 Sudanese and Eritrean migrant workers and asylum seekers in . Less than a day after announcing that a deal had been reached, he changed his mind due to pressure from right-wing activists. This time, he may have canceled the permits for Tlaib and Omar to visit the region under pressure from President Trump, who wants to stain the Democratic Party. Even the (AIPAC) and Republican Senator criticized this undemocratic act

When Netanyahu was reelected in 2009 — after his first term from 1996 to 1999 was acknowledged to be a failure — I really thought there was a chance that, as a historian’s son, with a second chance he might do the right thing and understand that, if he wanted to go down in history, it should be as the one who brought lasting peace and security to the state of Israel. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Tlaib and Omar, You Are Welcome in Israel 

Representatives Tlaib and Omar should know that there are many Israelis who are embarrassed and ashamed by Netanyahu’s behavior. They were invited by the Policy Working Group, which consists of about 25 Israeli former diplomats, academics, civil society activists and media professionals, chaired by former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch, who resigned when he could no longer defend the official Israeli government policy. The US congresswomen had planned to meet and discuss Israeli-Palestinian relations and how to advance a two-state solution, for the sake of both peoples. Many Israelis, including members of the Knesset, would be happy to meet with them.

On August 16, Professor Tzvia Walden, Shimon Peres’ daughter, opened a morning Sabbath discussion at the Tzavta Club in Tel Aviv with some comments about leadership in connection with the Torah portion of the week that deals with Moses on Mount Nebo, seeing the promised land but realizing that his mission was over.

With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “I realize that this is an election season, and I don’t mean to infer anything political, but leaders should know when it’s time to call it quits.”

*[A version of this article was published on The Times of Israel’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Is Netanyahu Afraid of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

We, both Israelis and Palestinians, are members of the editorial board of the , a joint quarterly issued in East Jerusalem for the past three decades. Our aim is to promote dialogue based upon equality, mutual recognition and respect and provide intellectual impetus to the peace camp in both nations. We are unanimously committed to the two-state paradigm as articulated in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016, which was passed by a vote of 14 in favor, including four permanent members, with the United States abstaining. The passage of the resolution commits all UN member states, including the US, to unanimous support for the two-state solution.

We are gravely concerned by the diplomatic conduct of the Trump administration regarding international commitments undertaken by former US governments. In particular, these include the US recognition of Israel’s illegal claim to sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights and East Jerusalem; your recent statements asserting Israel’s “right” to annex parts of the West Bank; and the support your remarks received from Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy. Such statements prejudice any future peace negotiations in Israel’s favor.

The administration you represent has done immeasurable damage to any fair compromise that would lead to the realization of the two-state solution based on the internationally accepted parameters: the creation of the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel based on the Green Line (the June 4, 1967, ceasefire lines) with negotiated and mutually agreed-upon land swaps; West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; the termination of the occupation; and the secession of all human rights violations.

The annexation of territory conquered by war is a violation of international law — pure and simple. It is unconscionable that the US, which since its inception has been a pillar of freedom and democracy for the Western world, is flouting the very principles it has fought to uphold throughout its history. This approach is also not in the best interests of the Israeli people, who need a realistic resolution of the conflict to guarantee their long-term existence in peace and security in the Middle East.

We also protest the recent statements of Jared Kushner, the White House senior adviser, alleging that the Palestinians are incapable of running their own affairs. Such condescending remarks remind us of the claims of the Afrikaner leaders regarding the black majority in South Africa during the apartheid era. We are equally outraged by your brazen statements in support of the settlement enterprise and the entrenchment of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The so-called “deal of the century” by Kushner and the Trump administration will be stillborn, because it is indeed a deal, not a peace plan, and it is based on the assumption that the Palestinians can be coerced into selling out their national aspirations for a higher standard of living. We, both Israelis and Palestinians, believe this approach exposes the ignorance of the Kushner team, which is ignoring the proven steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their justified refusal to accept anything less than independence.

The US proposal is doomed to failure, and both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples will suffer the consequences of the despair that it has sown. The Palestinians must be freed from the yoke of Israeli domination through the creation of an independent state alongside the state of Israel. Until this happens, Israel will continue to be a pariah in the region. The future of the Israeli people is inextricably linked to that of the Palestinians, and Israel will experience true liberation only when Palestine is liberated.

As longstanding peace activists, our objective in publishing this open letter is to make clear that the reprehensible statements and actions of your administration will not go unchallenged. We call on the international community to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 2334, including the principle of differentiation regarding the settlements.

We appeal to the entire world to recognize the state of Palestine and support the Palestinian rejection of the “deal of the century” and its first installment unveiled in Bahrain. We do so in the interests of the two peoples and out of our firm belief that true and lasting peace based on the two-state solution, the most realistic and legitimate option, is still attainable.

Sincerely,

Hillel Schenker and Ziad AbuZayyad

Co-Editors of the Palestine-Israel Journal

Editorial Board Members

Ali Abu Shahla, Adnan Abdelrazek, Daniel Bar-Tal, Ilan Baruch, Gershon Baskin, Susie Becher, Galia Golan, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Edward (Edy) Kaufman, Hind Khoury, Sam’an Khoury, Alon Liel, Meir Margalit, Moshe Maoz, Benjamin Pogrund, Danny Rubinstein, Izhak Schnell, Hanna Siniora and Ata Qaymari

*[This article was originally published on The Times of Israel’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Israel Will Not Be Free Until Palestine Is Free appeared first on 51�Թ�.

On May 7 at 9 pm,��I joined at least 10,000 people in Tel Aviv’s Park Hayarkon for the 14th annual Israeli-Palestinian joint Alternative Memorial Ceremony. The event was co-organized by the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Family Forum and Combatants for Peace under the title, “Sharing Sorry, Bringing Hope.”

“Traitors!” “Shame on you!” “Homos!” “Nazis!” “Fuck you and fuck the Arabs!” “Go to Gaza!” “This day is only reserved for the Israeli fallen!” “The terrorists are coming for you — you’re next!” “They’re going to rape your daughter!” These were just some of the curses hurled at us by a pack of right-wing extremists when we arrived at the park, with yellow-vested monitors and swarms of police blocking their way to prevent them from getting at us. It felt like a test of courage, going through a gauntlet to make it to the dark green pasture near the Yarkon River, an oasis of hope and coexistence.

Memories of those who were killed

At 8 pm, when people stood in silence in memory of those who were killed in the conflict, thoughts ran through my mind of Yoram, the music teacher from Kibbutz Ma’anit whose wedding I had sung at; of Dr. Yosef Ha’efrati, head of the department when I studied general literature at Tel Aviv University, killed by a Syrian shell when he was lecturing to soldiers on the frontlines; of Yonatan Shomroni, one of the first sons of Kibbutz Barkai who I had taught music to in the sixth grade, lost on his third flight as a pilot; and the guy in my unit from Kiryat Shmoneh whose name I don’t remember, killed on the Golan Heights on the second day of the war when the Syrians rained shells down at us while we were laying a minefield.

The first speaker, Yuval Rachamim, chair of the Israeli Peace NGO Forum, lost his father in 1967 when he was 8 years old. He said he no longer goes to the official ceremony and that we have to mourn together and seek ways to end the conflict.��Leah Shakdiel from the Oz V’shalom religious peace movement also spoke, noting that people who look like her don’t usually share her views about the need for Israeli-Palestinian peace and understanding. However, she came to represent what she felt were true Jewish, humanistic values.��

There were three Palestinian speakers who lost family members. Two of them, Muhammad Unbos and Fatmeh Muhammadin (from Gaza but living temporarily in Ramallah), spoke via video from the West Bank, since they weren’t given permits to visit Tel Aviv. Fatmeh said she wanted to present the human face of the Gazans living under extremely harsh conditions.��The entire ceremony was broadcast live in Gaza by 37-year-old Rami Amman, founder of the Gaza Youth Committee, who said: “I welcome every peace initiative coming from the Israeli side, I don’t care if it’s right or left-wing.��I don’t think we — Palestinians and Israelis — should be busy blaming one another, especially after the terrible number of days we all went through; we need something else.”

The third Palestinian, the very eloquent 14-year-old Mohammad Darwish from the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, recalled how, when he was 8 years old, he saw his close childhood friend, Abd el-Rahman Shadi Abdullah, killed by a stray bullet fired by an Israeli soldier. With great pride and passion, he said: “I promise you that I am telling the story of your death in order to return life to a humane path, and in recent years, I have chosen to commemorate you by means of activism for peace.”

“… and there are many more of us”

I was particularly moved by the last speaker: Tamar Ben-Ozer. Her grandfather, Avraham Shomroni, was a colleague on Kibbutz Barkai; lost his parents in the Holocaust; survived via the��kindertransport��in England; became a member and leader of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and was principal of the regional kibbutz high school when I arrived; and he was a dedicated peace activist after his son Yonatan was killed. Saying this was the first year that she wasn’t sitting in the front row of the ceremony together with her grandfather, Tamar described how one of the veterans cried out at his grave last year. “Where are the young people who will continue the struggle? … I’m here,” exclaimed Tamar in memory of her grandfather and her uncle, “and there are many more of us.”

Afterwards, while catching a taxi with three women to Tel Aviv since the buses were all full, one of them said she came all the way from the Galil, and that it is so encouraging to see so many people — giving a sense of hope for the future. She also said that a friend didn’t come this time because, in 2018, the demonstrators spat at her and she didn’t want to go through that again.

In honor of Memorial Day, the Avi Chai Foundation prepared a series of short animated films in memory of some of the fallen. Lior Yonatan, the eldest son of poet Natan Yonatan, was killed near the Suez Canal on the first day of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. His brother Ziv says that Lior always told him, “on Purim, don’t dress up as a soldier.” Although Lior died on the frontlines, he was a dedicated peace activist who believed in the sanctity of life for all people — Israelis and Arabs on an equal basis — and for animals as well. Ziv is very gratified that the in memory of his brother doesn’t show him in uniform, but emphasizes his love of nature.

The evening closed, as always, with a beautiful rendition by a joint Jewish-Arab choir of Chava Alberstein’s powerful anti-war version of “Chad Gadya,” written during the First Intifada, with its powerful cry: “How long will the cycle of violence continue?”

Reflecting on the joint memorial ceremony as we celebrated Israeli Independence Day, one thing is clear to me: We Israelis will not be truly independent and free until the Palestinians also have their independence and freedom.

*[A version of this article was originally published on ’s blogs.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Bringing Hope to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Like on many other international issues, US President Donald Trump is simply wrong when it comes to how to deal with the issue of the Golan Heights.��On March 21, he : “After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability.” Just days later, he a proclamation to confirm the move.

That is not the way to guarantee Israel’s long-term security, or American interests in the Middle East.��By now it should be clear that, alongside the maintenance of a strong Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties are two major keys to guaranteeing the country’s security. The two missing pieces in Israel’s security puzzle are peace treaties with Syria and with the Palestinians.��Although they may not be attainable in the short term, it should be clear to anyone with a minimal understanding of security affairs that eventual agreements with the Syrians and Palestinians are essential to ensuring the country’s future in the Middle East.

Syria will never sign a peace agreement with Israel without a return of the Golan Heights, which until 1967 were known as the Syrian Heights. And this is not just Syria’s position. It is also the position of the entire Arab and Muslim world, so there should be no illusions about this in the Trump administration, whether it be President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or the Middle East peace process team of Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Ambassador David Friedman.

Just read the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative, which was adopted at the Arab League Summit Conference in Beirut in 2002, since reaffirmed many times. It expresses the readiness of all 22 Arab states, backed by all 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to have peace and normal relations with Israel. This is on condition that Israel will “Withdraw fully from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan to the line of 4 June 1967, and from the territories in southern Lebanon that are still occupied.”

And Trump should have no illusions about his friends — President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia — being ready to accept anything less than that.��It should be recalled that the Arab Peace Initiative originally began with the Saudi Initiative.

A Demilitarized Golan Heights

This doesn’t mean that after an agreement to return the Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty that the Syrian army should be allowed to return to the territory. The presence of the Syrian army on the heights was a clear and present danger to the Upper Galilee communities in Northern Israel.��I am fully aware of this, since I served in the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps for seven months on the Golan Heights in 1973-74 after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, and have vivid memories of the sound of Syrian weapons being fired at my unit.

In any agreement, the Golan Heights will have to be demilitarized.��There are many proposals that could guarantee a peaceful future for the territory, such as creating a national park area on the heights between the town of Quneitra and the ridge overlooking the Sea of Galilee, the kibbutzim and the cities of Tiberias and Kiryat Shemoneh down below.

Although I live now in Tel Aviv, in February 1974 I had the privilege of representing my kibbutz, Barkai, in a debate about the establishment of two new kibbutzim on the ridge of the Golan Heights. The position I expressed was that the establishment of such kibbutzim would be an obstacle to the future possibilities for peace between Israel and Syria. I was backed by my division commander, who gave me leave from my unit to participate in the debate.��He said, “Tell them that settlements on the Golan only get in the way of the army’s ability to defend the country.��After-all, all the civilians on the heights had to be evacuated back to Israel proper when the war began.”

After a prolonged discussion, which required two sessions of the national kibbutz council — the first one in Tel Aviv, and the second one at a northern kibbutz that included a trip up to the ridge to see the Syrian positions which overlooked the kibbutzim down below — I’m very proud of being part of the compromise decision that was arrived at. The two kibbutzim built on the ridge of the Golan Heights by the Kibbutz Artzi-Hashomer Hatzair movement were the only “conditional” kibbutzim established in the history of the country — the condition being that if they were to become an obstacle to a peace agreement, they would move back to Israel proper.

It’s true that for the past eight years, Syria has been immersed in a bloody civil war.��However, it is clearly winding down, and despite the brutality of the government, many Israeli security experts prefer the stability provided by Bashar al-Assad’s regime to chaos, and definitely to a fundamentalist regime associated with the Islamic State. The fact is that Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu (ask his then-representative Ron Lauder)��all negotiated with the Assad regimes — father and son — based on the idea of returning the Golan Heights to the Syrians in exchange for peace.

It’s not only the Trump administration that should understand this. The same is true for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his chief rivals, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, all of whom are today advocating a refusal to return the Golan Heights to the Syrians. That is the height of shortsightedness, even if it is a popular slogan for elections.

If Israel is to survive in long-range terms in the region, it will need to eventually reach a peace agreement with the Syrians and the Palestinians, to go alongside the agreements with Egypt and Jordan. This will not be achieved tomorrow.��But it should still be the strategic goal of the Israeli leadership, and also of a responsible American leadership concerned with Israel’s best interests and a secure and stable Middle East.

*[A version of this article was originally published on The Times of Israel’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Trump Is Wrong on the Golan Heights appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Here in Israel/Palestine, we have just lived through some of the most dramatic days in recent memory.��The calendar said it all: May 12 was the deadline for President Donald Trump to declare whether the American government was remaining committed to the Iran nuclear deal; May 14 was set for the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem; and May 15 was Nakba Day — the day the Palestinians mark the anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and their nakba (disaster or catastrophe). May 15 was also going to be the climax of the six-week-long March of Return, a mass Palestinian protest along the Gaza border.

Those dry dates and figures turned a ghastly red when 61 Palestinians were killed and about 2,400 injured by Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on May 14 on the Gaza border. Israel’s government claims that the policy of using live fire is justified by the need to protect its sovereign borders from being violated.��The same justification was used on March 30 —��the beginning of the March of Return — when some 100 IDF snipers killed 31 protesters.

How many IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians have been killed since March 30 along the Gaza border? None.

There was no clear and present danger to the lives of the young soldiers stationed on the Israeli side of the border.��According to international law, Israel has a right to defend itself when under attack, as it demonstrated when the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel on October 5, 1973.��I know because I was there, called up on that same day to serve for the next 8 months in the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps on the northern front.

I also know that there is absolutely no justification for the current policy being used on the Gaza border. There are many techniques for crowd dispersal — smoke, water cannons, skunk spray. These have been used by Israeli police to disperse Jewish ultra-Orthodox demonstrators when they try to block the roads in protest against being drafted into the army or for what they see as violations of the Sabbath.��These techniques have also been used against Palestinian and joint Israeli-Palestinian non-violent demonstrations against the expropriation of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank.

So why weren’t they used in Gaza?��The government claims it is sending a message of deterrence.��But does one of the need to send a message of deterrence by killing primarily non-violent protesters?

Humanitarian Crisis

Although Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the siege continued, with all movement to and from the area remaining under Israeli control. There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The economy is in shambles, the water is polluted, there are barely four hours of electricity available a day, unemployment is rampant — 60% among the younger generation — and the UN says that the strip will be “.”

Egypt also shares responsibility for the situation because of its continued siege of the southern border between Sinai and Gaza.��And of course Hamas, which was elected in 2006 under the slogan of “Reform and Change” also bears a large part of the responsibility for the suffering of the Gazans because of its corrupt self-serving behavior, as does the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas, which discriminates against Gazans in the context of the struggle between West Bank-headquartered Fatah and Hamas.

The people of Gaza are desperate.��Their desperation was the catalyst for the March of Return along the border with Israel. This primarily non-violent initiative did not begin with Hamas, although it took advantage of the opportunity and tried try to direct the protest.

And where is the “international community”?��Palestinians feel that their Arab brothers have abandoned them, preferring to sell oil to and buy arms from the Americans.��And the European Union?��The Policy Working Group-Israel consisting of about 25 veteran ambassadors, senior academics and civil society activists working for a two-state solution, chaired by Ambassador (Ret.) Ilan Baruch, have called upon the EU “to immediately dispatch staff members to the Gaza border to monitor the situation. It is possible that their very presence will have an immediate impact by reducing the level of violence on the ground.” So far there’s been no response.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem was “.” Actually, all the transfer consisted of was the placing an��“American Embassy” sign on the US consulate building in the remote Arnona neighborhood of West Jerusalem — a technique that Trump has used very often in his career, placing signs with his name on buildings around the world. The “move” consisted of the opening of a small office for Ambassador David Friedman and an assistant in the building, while the rest of the embassy staff remain in Tel Aviv.

But, symbolically, this was enough for the Palestinians to feel that the Americans can no longer be considered a legitimate facilitator for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Perhaps it was not “a great day for peace,” but it was definitely a great day for right-wing Israelis who don’t want to see a two-state solution with a capital in West Jerusalem for Israel and in East Jerusalem for a future Palestinian state.��And it was also a great day for Trump’s extreme evangelical Christian supporters who want to see all the Jews return to a Greater Israel as a prelude for the final battle at Armageddon, the conversion of the Jews and the 3rd��coming of Christ.

“We Are Not Your Toy”

Yesterday, I was at a demonstration opposite the Likud party headquarters at Jabotinsky House in Tel Aviv, organized by all segments of the Israeli peace movement.��About 500 demonstrators blocked the main thoroughfare, shouting slogans and carrying signs which rhyme in Hebrew like “The People demand/Stop the firing”; “In the North and in the South/The People want a Peace Agreement” (a reference to the tensions on the northern border with Syria where the Israelis face the Iranians); “Democracy is not built on the bodies of demonstrators”; “Enough to killing/Enough to mourning/Peace is worth more than all”; “Without fear/ Without despair/We will end the Occupation”; “Children in Gaza and Sderot/Both want to Live”; and “Resign Netanyahu/Peace is worth more than you are.”

The most original sign was the one that read “Trump, Bibi/We Are Not Your Toy.” This was a play on the refrain of Netta Barzilai’s song “Toy” that won Israel the Eurovision Song Contest on May 12, watched by over a billion people around the world. The song calls for the empowerment of women and people who are different, inspired by the #MeToo campaign.��The song and the sign are also a message to Trump and Netanyahu that they may be riding high today, but there are subterranean streams that may eventually bring both of them down.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:����/

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It’s been over three weeks since the current round of Israeli-Palestinian violence began. Fifty two Palestinians and eight Israelis , so far, and the “body-count” will undoubtedly keep rising.

This is not (yet) a mass uprising along the lines of the relatively non-violent First Intifada that began in 1987, or the much more violent Second Intifada in the year 2000.

As one of few Israelis who have been traveling between East and West Jerusalem during these volatile times, one thing I can say is that anyone who had the illusion that Jerusalem was a “united city”—as Israeli government spokespeople have declared since the unilateral “unification” of the city by the Knesset in 1967—simply doesn’t know what they are talking about. Today, Jerusalem is home to 320,000 Palestinians and 500,000 Jews. It’s almost a 40-60% relationship, and we are steadily moving toward 50-50 and an eventual Palestinian majority. And they are two different, unequal worlds. Actually more than two if you look at the ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up about 38% of the Jewish population as opposed to the “others”—secular, traditional and national religious Jews.

In the 1996 elections, the right-wing attacked the Labor Party candidate with the slogan, “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Now, in 2015, what has actually happened is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has divided Jerusalem (not that it was ever really united).

Fear on both sides

Fear is dividing Jerusalem. Israelis are afraid to go to East Jerusalem, while Palestinians are afraid to go to West Jerusalem. The fact is that although there have been sporadic and sometimes lethal incidents in other parts of Israel and in the West Bank, 80% of the Palestinian knife-stabbing attacks have taken place in Jerusalem. Many have been focused around the Old City and the Light Rail system, which runs along the divide between east and west. Israeli fear is an understandable response.

People often ask me, “Aren’t you afraid to go to East Jerusalem?” My response is that since I don’t wear a military uniform, don’t have a religious yarmulke on my head and don’t look like a settler or an ultra-Orthodox Jew, it’s less likely that I will be a target. I have also been regularly going to the office for the past 13 years, so I’m a familiar, rare and unthreatening Israeli presence in the area.

However, since what has been happening over the past few weeks is an unorganized, spontaneous and individual series of stabbings, carried out mainly by teenagers aged 13 to 19, I admit to feeling uneasy and tense when I see a group of Palestinian youths on their way to and from school. I hate the feeling, but it’s real.

The counterpoint to that feeling is what a Palestinian taxi driver told me last week. As I was about to leave my office, I heard a series of sirens from emergency vehicles. I quickly looked at the breaking stories online and saw that there had been a stabbing attack by a young Palestinian against Israelis at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, and that the assailant had been shot by Israeli security forces.

Since that is barely a ten-minute walk from the office, I realized my original plan to walk to the Light Rail train station (10 minutes away) to take it two stops to the heart of West Jerusalem at the corner of Jaffa Road and King George Street wouldn’t work. Since I was getting pressure from home to take a taxi, I ordered one.

When the driver arrived, he said it would be impossible to get to the inter-city taxi station to Tel Aviv in West Jerusalem (just a 20-minute walk away) above Zion Square on Hanivi’im Street, since the police had blocked off all the surrounding roads. The only alternative was to go to the Israeli Central Bus Station at the entrance to West Jerusalem (there is also a Palestinian Central Bus Station with buses that travel around East Jerusalem and the West Bank), but he was afraid to go there.

Why was the Palestinian taxi driver afraid? Because he heard that right-wing Israeli youth were roaming the streets looking for Palestinians to attack. He told me that if he saw two or three young Israelis asking for a ride, he wouldn’t pick them up because he was afraid of what they might do to him. He also told me that most of his fellow taxi drivers at the station stayed home, but he had begun driving an hour ago. He needed the money. In the end, he agreed to take me to the bus station, though he knew there would be no fare back. It cost me 80 NIS ($20) instead of 3.50 NIS ($1) on the Light Rail.

Controversy over the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif

Why is all this happening? One of the explanations being given is that Palestinians and the Muslim world believe the Israeli government plans to change the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary).

To his credit, Netanyahu is trying to act as the responsible adult on this topic, insisting that Israeli policy is to maintain the status quo arrangement decided after the 1967 War, which guarantees access to the area to people of all faiths at particular times, and that Jews will not pray in the compound—an arrangement backed by the chief rabbis of Israel, who say prayer should not be allowed until after the arrival of the Messiah.

Fear is dividing Jerusalem. Israelis are afraid to go to East Jerusalem, while Palestinians are afraid to go to West Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has also ordered all Knesset members not to go into the area. Yet some right-wing ministers in his own government, including Uri Ariel and Miri Regev, advocate the right of Jews to pray in the area, and there are extreme Jewish organizations that call for the construction of a Third Temple in place of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

This perceived threat to the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has undoubtedly contributed to the current unrest.

Palestinian Despair

However, the primary cause of the latest wave of violence is Palestinian despair. The younger generation sees no hope for the future. After over 20 years of negotiations, there is no end to the occupation, no independent Palestinian state on the horizon, and in East Jerusalem the young suffer from a sense of deprivation, deep inequality and lack of pride when they look at their Jewish counterparts in West Jerusalem.�� Some of them have decided to become “heroes in the struggle.”

Some people are calling this the “Smartphone or the Facebook Intifada.” One of the main differences between the first two uprisings in 1987 and 2000 and the current wave of violence in 2015 is that back then, the primary images people saw were the product of TV cameras and photojournalists. Now, everyone is carrying with them a portable TV camera in the form of a smartphone. And the imagery is circulated immediately via social media. But it’s usually a partial image. Young Palestinians are seeing vulnerable and wounded boys their age being shot and killed by Israeli security forces who are egged on by settlers, and they want revenge. Young Israelis see the stabbing attacks or even the driver who ran over people, and they feel fear and some want revenge.

In the broader scheme of things, Netanyahu is not acting as the responsible adult. He is not a man of hope who attempts to provide a horizon for Israelis and Palestinians. He is a man who has built and continues to maintain his whole political career by fanning the flames of fear, by holding the fort and providing no long-term vision for either people.

Israelis and Palestinians Seeking Answers Together

In the midst of the current round of violence, the Palestine-Israel Journal, together with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, convened an internal consultation with three prominent Israelis and Palestinians, as well as American and European diplomats, to discuss reenergizing the Middle East peace process.

The general consensus among the Israeli and Palestinian participants was that a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian process is no longer viable. It was noted that “For a peace process to be generated from inside Israel/Palestine, each side needs: 1) a leader with legitimacy; and 2) a leader determined to pursue peace.” We do not have that combination today.

Hillary Clinton, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas / Flickr

On the Israeli side, Netanyahu, despite the lip-service of a readiness for unconditional negotiations, is not ready to enter a serious negotiating process. The prime minister continues to enflame the situation, especially with his latest absurd unhistorical statement that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews … he wanted to expel them,” and that it was then-Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini who convinced him that extermination was the answer. And Netanyahu is joined by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who call on all Israelis to bear arms and defend themselves—a clear recipe for indiscriminate vigilantism.

On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas, despite being committed to a two-state solution and only nonviolent resistance, cannot bring himself to condemn the current round of Palestinian violence. Based on incorrect information, he claimed that Israeli police had “executed” a 13-year-old Palestinian (who had committed a stabbing attack against a Jewish teenager), despite the fact he was alive and being treated in an Israeli hospital. And together with a potential future Palestinian leader, Jibril Rajoub, Abbas praised the Palestinian martyrs who lose blood over Jerusalem, which sounds like support for continued Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Active Initiatives from the International Community Needed

With Netanyahu and Abbas in charge, it is clear that a solution cannot be generated from within. That is why the consensus among the Israelis and Palestinians at the consultation was to call for the active involvement of the international community to seek solutions.

There are many ideas, among them a new United Nations Security Council Resolution to set the internationally accepted parameters for an agreement; the creation of a permanent international conference to monitor an ongoing process; the establishment of an international support group or the P5+1 formula that was used to arrive at an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program; the reactivation of The Quartet (the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations); and the use of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which the entire Arab world, backed by the Muslim world, offered Israel peace and normal relations in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, alongside the State of Israel.

In Israel, what we need is to be inspired by Canada. We need our own Justin Trudeau to replace our hard-talking, hawkish neocon Stephen Harper-type prime minister. A leader who can offer a horizon of “sunny skies” and hope for both Israelis and Palestinians, in place of the current storm clouds over Jerusalem.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Prime Minister and US Republicans are trying to that all Israelis are opposed to the deal with Iran, which is aimed at preventing it from achieving nuclear weapons.

In The New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote a recent article ,��“If I were an Israeli looking at the Iran deal.”

Well, I’m an Israeli who lives in Tel Aviv and experienced Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles raining down on the city in 1991, the ineffectual rockets that were blocked by the Iron Dome defense system in summer 2014, and who was on the front lines for eight months in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Combat Engineering Corps facing the Syrians with their then-chemical weapons potential during the 1973-74 Yom Kippur War. Since 1982, I have edited four publications that dealt with the danger of the nuclearization of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the quest for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East, and in recent years, I have participated in many regional encounters with prominent experts on the subject from Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia,��Iran and the P5+1, which negotiated the deal.

When I look at the Iran agreement, I see a deal that prevents the Iranians from achieving nuclear weapons for the next 10-15 years and puts in place an inspection regime that will make it very difficult for Iran to ever pursue nuclear weapons without being detected. Therefore, I support the deal as being in the best interests of both Israel and the United States.

And I’m not alone. I am part of an initiative by a group of concerned Israeli citizens, many of them prominent academics, who are sending��a ��to all members of the US Congress and Senate, which begins with the following sentences:

“We, the undersigned Israeli citizens, wish to congratulate the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, upon reaching an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program.

“Thanks to the provisions outline in the agreement, and in particular the unprecedented inspection regime, this agreement provides the best assurance that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons for at least 15 years.

“As people who live in Israel, share the risks and are strongly committed to Israel’s security, we are confident that a diplomatic, peaceful solution represents the best chance of containing any potential nuclear threat.”

Israeli Security Experts Support the Deal

Independent security analyst Shmuel Meir—the former head of the Arms Control Branch in the IDF Strategic Planning Department, who writes a blog in Hebrew at��Haaretz��that deals primarily with nuclear affairs—recently an in-depth piece about the agreement:��“A detailed analysis of the Vienna deal shows that there is no basis for the dramatic scenario posited by Netanyahu.” He concluded that: “The agreement contains important positive implications for Israel’s security.��Above all, it prevents Iran’s emergence as a new nuclear weapon state in the Middle East.” And he adds: “As a by-product, the agreement should prevent the development of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and the region’s transformation into a multi-nuclear arena.”

Another analysis by a veteran commander in the Israeli intelligence services, Avishay Ben Sasson Gordis, written for the Molad think tank, is :��“Why the Nuclear Deal is Good for Israel.”

On August 13, Amir Oren, a security affairs commentator for Haaretz, wrote an article ,��“Netanyahu Must Stop Silencing Intel Chiefs Who Find Iran Deal Acceptable.” He stated: “There are those in the Intelligence Corps whose views on the nuclear agreement are at odds with Netanyahu’s position; their opinions are being kept from the public.”

The next day, on August 14, the lead story written again by Oren was devoted to “a unique document entitled ‘IDF Strategy,’” prepared by the new IDF chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkott, containing the Israeli army’s plans for the coming five years.��The headline of the was,��“Eizenkot: Iran Isn’t the Main Threat to Israel.”��In the piece, he noted: “Iran is mentioned as supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, not as a nuclear threat.”

We all recall how the entire Israeli security establishment, Mossad Head Meir Dagan, General Security Services Head Yuval Diskin, IDF Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi and many others were opposed to Netanyahu’s plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.�� So where are the voices of the current head of Mossad, the General Security Services, IDF Intelligence and the head of the National Security Council?��Netanyahu seems insistent on making this a one-man show, and he is muzzling all of the others.��If they were with him, he would be broadcasting their support loud and clear.

We do know that the former head of General Security Services, Ami Ayalon, the deal is��“the best possible alternative from Israel’s point of view, given the other available alternatives.” While former��Mossad Head Ephraim Halevy :��“A moment before we storm Capitol Hill, led by the Israeli ambassador to Washington, it’s important to hold a profound debate in Israel on whether no agreement is preferable to an agreement which includes components that are crucial for Israel’s security. There will be no other agreement and no other negotiations. What is better, a signed agreement or no agreement?”

And Uzi Even, a physics professor at Tel Aviv University who served as a scientist at the Dimona reactor, stated in an :��“I am sure the deal that was signed is preferable to the current situation because it delays Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb by at least 15 years and in practice ends its nuclear aspirations. Don’t believe me? Look at the facts.”

Secretary of Energy Moniz: Israeli scientists influenced the deal

And speaking of scientists, in an interview with��Yediot Ahronot’s American correspondent, Orly Azulay, US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, a noted nuclear physicist,��stated: “During the course of negotiations, Wendy Sherman [the under-secretary of state who coordinated the negotiating team, traveled to Israel to report and also to compare notes. We were in constant contact with Israeli scientists, and as a result of those important discussions, we have a stronger agreement.” Moniz went on to say: “The agreement gives us very strong monitoring mechanisms.��I have tremendous confidence in the American, Israel, British and other intelligence services.��At the foundation of the agreement lies our ability to ascertain whether the Iranians are doing what they agreed to … The risk of Iran being caught, if it goes in the wrong direction is very high.” Moniz also warned that “if Congress rejects the agreement, the global unity which has helped us so much will no longer be.��We will be alone.��The sanctions regime will collapse, and we will be facing a worst case scenario.”

To return to Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, toward the end of his article he wrote that “unfortunately, Israel has a prime minister whose strategy is to reject the Iran deal without any credible Plan B.”

Using even harsher words, Israel’s most widely read and influential political commentator, Nachum Barnea, wrote in��Yediot Ahronot the following:��“At this moment in the crisis Israel has no cabinet, no government, no security apparatus, no Knesset, no free press. Everything is being decided and determined according to the wishes of one man, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Barnea then went on to recall��Netanyahu’s expert ��on Iraq in 2002, in which he advocated that America should overthrow the Iraqi regime. “Take out Saddam, [and] I guarantee that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” which would lead to a ripple effect leading to positive change in Iran and the entire Middle East. He also spoke about the tremendous benefit of “applying power” in Afghanistan, talking about “the first victory in Afghanistan, leading to the second victory in Iraq,” etc.

Well, we all know how that turned out.��Even Jeb Bush admits that Iraq was a mistake. But Netanyahu never seems to learn.

*[This article was originally published on The Times of Israel’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Is American-led military action the only way to deal with the presence and use of chemical weapons in Syria? Why not try to negotiate, together with all the relevant parties, including the Russians and Iranians, a post-civil war Syria, without chemical weapons? And why not begin negotiations to establish a Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the Middle East?

We will soon be marking the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, which began on October 5, 1973, with a surprise attack by Syria and Egypt against the Israeli forces on the Golan Heights and in Sinai. I happen to be an Israeli, who unlike the Americans in the Congress and Senate that will soon be voting on the next steps in the current drama, actually faced the Syrians on the Golan Heights in 1973-74, for eight months, in the Combat Engineering Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Like Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, I know the horrors of war.

One of my primary conclusions from that experience was the importance of doing everything possible to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict, and to seek a peaceful and non-violent long-term resolution to conflict situations in general. That does not equal pacifism, because there clearly are situations where there is no alternative but to use military force in self-defense, and to keep and maintain the peace.

When it comes to Syria, there are the zoom-in and the zoom-out approaches. 

The Zoom-In Approach: Action, No Matter What the Consequences

The zoom-in approach focuses on one detail: chemical weapons were used in Syria. This is a violation of universal norms and of President Barack Obama's red-line. Action is required — whatever the complicated consequences.

The Zoom-Out Approach: Focusing on the Bigger Picture

The zoom-out approach focuses on the bigger picture. There is a civil war in Syria and over 100,000 combatants and civilians have been killed. Chemical weapons were used, apparently by President Bashar al-Assad's forces, though there are claims that it was a provocation by the rebels. There is a need to prevent the use of chemical weapons and to arrive at a stable post-civil war situation in Syria, which will guarantee the safety of all three major communities: the Alawites, Sunnis and the Kurds — as well as the Druze and Christians.

The quest for a post-civil war Syria will probably require American-Russian, and perhaps American-Iranian cooperation, and the involvement of the United Nations and the Arab League. That solution will be achieved by diplomatic, not military, means; although a peace-keeping force may be required in the transition period. The American readiness to explore the to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control is a possible first step in that direction.

Iran

Another part of the picture is the crisis around the Iranian nuclear program. With the election of President Hassan Rouhani, an apparent Iranian readiness for diplomatic discourse with the West, and first and foremost the United States, should be explored. Such an exploration could help to resolve the conflict around the Iranian nuclear program, and it could also contribute to the creation of a stable post-civil war Syria.

The Israeli-Palestinian Track

There is also the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, thanks to the determination of Secretary of State Kerry. Progress on this track, which is dependent on the readiness of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and continued American determination to be an effective facilitator, could be a major building block towards resolving the general tensions in the Middle East. It would also eliminate the Israeli occupation as a mobilizing factor for radical and extremist forces in the region.

WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East

All of the above requires the creation of a new regional regime for security and cooperation, as was done in post-World War II Europe. One of the foundations of this new regime would be the creation of a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East. This would mean no chemical weapons in Syria; no nuclear weapons in Iran or any other country in the region; and a treaty with ironclad guarantees and the means for monitoring and maintaining the treaty.

This is not just a theoretical idea. The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference, meeting in New York in April/May 2010, resolved that an international conference should be convened, to begin the process of moving towards a WMD-Free Zone in the region, under the auspices of the US, the UK, Russia, and the UN Secretary General. Although the conference was not convened in 2012 as originally planned, it is still on the international agenda, and must be convened before the next NPT Review Conference in 2015 to save the current international non-proliferation regime.

There is no doubt that if the American government wills it, and does what is necessary to promote it, a regional conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East can and will be convened.

*[An earlier version of this article was published in The Times of Israel under the title "."]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Here we stand, at a major crossroads in Israel’s history, the elections to the 19th Knesset.

Are we living and realizing the dream that my uncle, Dov Barnir one of the youngest members of the first Knesset had? Or of my daughter’s god-father, Tzvi Luria, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence in 1948 and a founder of the Kol Yisrael radio station? Or that I had when I came on aliya from New York to a border kibbutz a few weeks before President Kennedy was assassinated?

Today Israeli society seems more divided than ever, between right and left.

Reasons for the Right

The tendency towards the right has been reinforced by simple demographics: the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox religious, who since the “miracle” (in their eyes) of 1967, have tended to vote for right-wing parties and have more children. In addition, the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with anxieties produced by the uncertainties created by the Arab Spring have made many, particularly younger voters, open to right-wing messages of the whole region and world is against us, there is no solution, and we must be strong and uncompromising.

Leftwing Energy

The counterpoint to that approach is the energy generated by the mass social protest movement for social justice, which reached its peak on September, 3, 2011, when 500,000 Israelis took the streets saying that “the people demand social justice”. Most of the young leaders of that protest came from the left, and although they initially created a separation between socio-economic issues and the cost of the settlements, the occupation and the need for peace, they have since begun to make the connection. The social protest has had a profound impact on the Israeli discourse, placing socio-economic questions on the public agenda, alongside peace and security.

So how does all this translate into the elections of January 2013?

A Strong Prime Minister for a Strong Israel?

Prime Minister Netanyahu's campaign slogan is: “A strong Prime Minister for a Strong Israel”. The question is strong to do what. When Netanyahu was elected for the second time in 2009, after a disastrous first term – 2006-2009 – I thought that as the son of a historian he would try to make his mark in Israeli history. And the best way to do so was to be responsible for a breakthrough towards Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace. In June 2009, he even said the magic words, “a two state solution”, in his speech at Bar-Ilan University, which was a response to President Barack Obama’s call for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track. The problem is that it appears he said it like someone sitting in a dentist’s chair, having his teeth pulled out. During the rest of his term he did absolutely nothing to move a vision of a two state solution towards a resolution of the conflict forward. On the contrary, he continued to place new settlement obstacles on the road to a resolution. He hasn’t even been able to place the two-state solution on the Israeli government’s agenda or the platform of the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset list. I suspect that this is not because he is unable, but rather because he is unwilling. And Netanyahu has also been unable to close the ever expanding gap between the rich and the overburdened middle class, and the 20% of the population suffering poor who live under the poverty line (and that’s economics which are supposedly his forte). Not to speak of the anti-democratic tendencies emanating from his government, with threats to freedom of the press and academia, and the firing of officials who think differently.

“The Most Anti-Zionist Government Ever”

Leading writer “the Netanyahu government is Israel’s most anti-Zionist government ever,” “because it is doing everything so there will be no two states here, but one,” which would be the end of the dream of the Zionist founding fathers and mothers, and would lead either to an anti-democratic apartheid-like regime, if the Palestinians are not given the right to vote, or to an Arab state, because the Palestinians will be the majority. However, he adds that Labor Party leader Sheli Yachimovitz is even worse than former party leader Ehud Barak, who said “there is no solution,” since Yachimovitz, who is constantly evading the need to take a stand on peace and security, says “there is no problem.”

What we see in these elections is an even more right-wing Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu party list than in the outgoing Knesset, since liberals Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Michael Eitan have been removed, and an emerging further right national-religious list Habayit Hayhudi (The Jewish Home), led by former Netanyahu bureau chief and Yesha Settlement Council head Naftali Bennet, who advocates annexation of 60% of Area C in the West Bank.

As the counter-point on the center-left, we see a series of parties that support a two state solution, but no leadership capable of uniting them in opposition to Netanyahu and proposing a clear alternative vision for Israel’s future.

As Oz, who supports the left-Zionist party Meretz says, this is an “existential campaign” over the fate of Israel.

Warning From the Shin Bet Security Chiefs

Another man with a similar estimate of what’s at stake is former Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin, who said in a recent interview in Yediot Ahronot on January 6, 2013: “After all these years of fighting terror and seeing so much death and killing in battle fields, on Israeli streets, in refugee camps and in villages in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon — there comes a time when you realize you must do everything, everything, to find some other way to talk and compromise so as to secure a better future for our children.” The interview was carried out by Dror Moreh, director of “The Gatekeepers”, one of the two Israeli candidates for best documentary in the 2013 Oscar competition, alongside “Five Broken Cameras”. Moreh interviewed six former Shin Bet security service chiefs for the film – Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter, Carmi Gilon, Jacob Perry, Avraham Shalom and Diskin – and all of them said that it was absolutely essential for Israel’s future to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, based upon territorial compromise and a two state solution.

Go out and Vote!

While it appears most likely that Netanyahu will be reelected as prime minister, as American baseball icon Yogi Berra once said, 'it ain’t over till it’s over'.

A concerned citizen named David Fogel published a front page ad in Haaretz calling on everyone in the center-left who opposes Netanyahu’s policies to vote. “Vote for Livni (Hatnua), Galon (Meretz), Yachimovitz (Labor), Lapid (Yesh Atid), Mofaz (Kadima),” any of them, to enable the center-left to form a coalition. An article in Haaretz by writer Sefi Rechlevski argues in a similar vein, saying that on the right everyone will vote, so the same has to be true for the center-left. Even President Peres has been promoting the need for all responsible citizens to go out and vote.

The outcome of the elections, and the composition of the next government, may very well depend on the number of voters going to the polling booths. While all the settlers will vote, as will all the Haredim/ultra-Orthodox (perhaps even more than 100%, since ID cards of deceased citizens may also be in play), only 58% of the voters in liberal Tel Aviv voted in the last elections, and barely 50% of the Arab voters, who make up 20% of the population. Getting out the vote will be one of the keys to the outcome of the elections.

A Sense of Urgency

On Friday January 4, I went up to Givat Haviva, the Kibbutz Seminary that borders on my old kibbutz, Barkai, where I used to take the sheep out to pasture after getting up at 3:30am. The occasion was the Havatzelet Foundation’s annual grant award ceremony for kibbutz artists, writers, dancers, filmmakers, photographers and student social activists working in deprived neighborhoods, with new immigrants and in the Arab villages – a taste of the old Israel and its pioneering values.

This year, alongside performances by some of the very talented young kibbutzniks who received grants, it was decided to hold a panel discussion on the impact of the social protest movement. The participants were social protest leader and Labor Party Knesset candidate Stav Shaffir, Ben-Gurion University Professor Avihu Spivak, who serves as co-chair of the “Experts Committee” which advises the social protest movement and former Meretz chair and MK Chaim (Jumes) Oron. Shaffir, a very bright and fiery activist, defended Yachimovitz’ strategy of focusing on the socio-economic issues, while Spivak said it will take time to arrive at the necessary two state solution, which he said is essential for the health of Israel’s economy and social infrastructure.

Oron’s response was that “we don’t have time,” and must have a sense of urgency – the two state solution is in danger. If no breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian front will take place in the next year or two, the Palestinian Authority will collapse and the current pragmatic leadership of Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will give way to more extreme leaders, and we will not be able to survive as a Jewish and democratic state.

I agree.

*[This article was originally published in blog].

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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As we marked the 45th anniversary of the occupation this June, I would support any effective nonviolent strategy that will end the occupation of the West Bank and lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, with mutually agreed-upon land swaps — what is known as a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders — which I believe is in the genuine interest of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples.

If BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), clearly a nonviolent tactic, could produce such a result, I would support it. To borrow Shakespeare’s formulation, “To BDS or not to BDS, that is the question.” To my mind, the primary problem with BDS is that it won’t work. It will not produce the desired result of ending the occupation.

I can understand those Palestinians and their international supporters who, out of frustration with the current situation, the breakdown in negotiations between the Israeli government and the PLO leadership, the weakening of the Israeli left and peace movement and the realization that violence has not worked, are looking at BDS as a possible solution.

There are a number of reasons why I believe BDS can’t do it:

1) There is no chance that the international community, as represented by its governments and the United Nations, would support BDS. Without North American, European, Latin American, Asian and African governmental support, and the backing of the UN Security Council and Secretary-General, BDS cannot be a decisive factor in determining the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations;

2) The “silent majority” of the Israeli public, which, according to all public opinion polls supports a two-state solution, and whose backing is absolutely necessary to bring an end to the occupation, sees BDS as an attempt to de-legitimize the existence not of the occupation, but of the very right of the State of Israel — even within the 1967 borders Green Line — to exist. This is also true for the mainstream of Jewish communities around the world; and

3) In most European countries, given the background of European responsibility for the Holocaust and past persecutions of the Jews, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to mobilize the majority of civil society public opinion to support BDS. This is particularly true for Germany, in many ways the most influential country in Europe today, and even more so when it comes to the United States, because of the “special relationship” between America and Israel, which is due to a combination of historic, cultural and strategic factors, whatever one may think about them.

Confronting “There Is No Partner for Peace”

Within the Israeli context, certain types of BDS activities which support a boycott of all cooperation and joint activities with Israelis reinforce the right-wing claim that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. “You see,” right-wing advocates exclaim, “Palestinians and their supporters aren’t ready to cooperate with left-wing Israeli academics who are openly critical of Israeli government policy. They aren’t even ready to work together with Israeli peace and human rights NGOs.”

One of the most effective ways to counteract the claim that there is no Palestinian partner, initiated by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak after the failure of Camp David 2000 and developed by current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, is joint Palestinian-Israeli civil society activity to end the occupation and build a better future for both peoples.

The Background to BDS

On July 9, 2005, a Palestinian Civil Society Call to BDS was issued by a group of NGOs in the West Bank. In explaining the reasoning behind the initiative, the call stated:

“Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine; and in view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions; and

Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression;

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel (my emphasis). We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

Despite the fact that this nonviolent campaign is admirable, and the frustrations that motivated the call are very clear, one of the primary problems with the initiative is that it made no distinction between the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and Israel proper. Unfortunately, the statement calls for the imposition of “broad boycotts and implement[ation of] divestment initiatives against Israel,” and not the Israeli occupation. If the call had been aimed at a boycott of all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and of all settlement products, it would have made a clear distinction between Israel’s illegal activities in the OPT and the legitimate right of the State of Israel to exist within the 1967 borders; a right recognized by the entire international community, and since 2002 by the Arab Peace Initiative backed by the 22 member states of the Arab League and the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (of course, on condition that Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem).

Since this distinction was not made, the BDS campaign has caused many mainstream Israelis and their supporters around the world to conclude that the campaign is not only aimed at an end to the occupation, but at the very right of the State of Israel to exist. The fact that some advocates of BDS have called for a one-state solution has only served to reinforce this impression.

Feeding into the Israeli Government’s “De-legitimization Campaign”

The Israeli government has used a number of tactics to divert attention from the need to move forward toward an end to the occupation and a resolution of the conflict. Focusing attention on the Iranian nuclear program at the expense of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the insistence on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a pre-condition for negotiations (an issue which wasn’t raised in the Israeli-Egyptian, Israeli-Jordanian or 1992-93 Israeli-PLO negotiations), the uncertainties created by the impact of the Arab Uprisings on regional governments, and the specter of an international “de-legitimization campaign” which challenges Israel’s very right to exist.

Unfortunately, the BDS campaign, with its call for a general boycott against Israel and Israelis and its ambiguous attitude toward the State of Israel’s right to exist, feeds into the fears that the Israeli government is trying to generate in the Israeli public. Thus, BDS unwittingly causes the majority of the Israeli public to rally around the government’s claim that “the whole world is against us.”

Read the of “What’s Wrong with BDS?” on December 2, 2012.

*[This article was originally published by the , Vol. 18 No. 2/3, 2012, devoted to Civil Society Challenges].

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What’s Wrong with BDS? (Part 1/2) appeared first on 51�Թ�.

“The Problem with BDS is the Ambiguity of the Goal”

Even Prof. Norman Finkelstein, an outspoken critic of Israeli policy who lost his tenured position at DePaul University because of his views, has criticized the BDS approach. In an on the occasion of the publication of his book Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End, he stated:

"I’ve written a little book on Gandhi, and one of the significant insights of his is that it’s important not only for your tactics to be perceived as moral, the public also has to see your goal as moral. And the problem with BDS is the ambiguity of the goal. Their official position is: 'We take no position on [the legitimacy of] Israel.' While BDS is a legitimate tactic to force Israel to accept the two-state solution, it has to have a just goal, which means it has to include recognition of Israel as a state."

This doesn’t mean that an Israeli right-wing McCarthyite witchhunt of boycott advocates is any better. BDS advocacy should definitely be a part of the democratic debate in Israel, and “academic monitors” of Israeli professors and proposed laws against such advocacy undermine the democratic right to freedom of expression.

Productive Nonviolent Techniques Against the Occupation

So if BDS is not a productive approach, what civil society nonviolent tactics might be effective in promoting an end to the occupation and the achievement of a two-state solution?

1) Boycott of the Israeli Settlements and Their Products

A boycott of the Israeli settlements and their products sends a clear, targeted message to the Israeli government, public and their supporters. Such a campaign would express clear opposition to the settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), one of the primary obstacles to a resolution of the conflict, without challenging the State of Israel’s right to exist within the internationally recognized 1967 borders.

In this respect, initiatives in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Denmark to have products labeled “Produced in the Occupied Territories,” and not simply as “Israeli products,” are a very welcome and constructive initiative.

The same is true for the Israeli artists who refuse to perform in the Ariel settlement in the West Bank, an initiative which has received the backing of international artists such as singer/actor Theodore Bikel, award-winning playwright Tony Kushner and many others. However, it should be noted that the construction workers who are building the settlements tend to be Palestinians. This is a major problem, though it is understandable that those workers need to provide for their families and do not have an alternative source of income.

2) Critical Engagement with the Israeli Intellectual World and Artistic Audiences

As an alternative to a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, performances in Israel and music festivals, critical engagement with the Israeli intellectual world and artistic audiences sends a very powerful message. Once again, a total boycott tends to be interpreted as a questioning of Israel’s right to exist. Critical intellectual and artistic engagement sends a targeted message to the Israeli public: “We support you as people, but not your government’s policies.”

Recent powerful examples of such critical engagement include the acceptance speech by British author Ian McEwan, winner of the Jerusalem Prize at the bi-annual Jerusalem International Book Fair in 2011, who presented a powerful critique of Israeli policies and the occupation, in the presence of President Shimon Peres, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, and right-wing Minister of Culture Limor Livnat. He followed in the tradition of a previous Jerusalem Prize winner, Susan Sontag, and others. Singer Leonard Cohen announced that he was giving all of the proceeds to his 2009 concert in Israel to the establishment of a Fund for Reconciliation, Toleration and Peace, to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace. And Madonna announced that she was launching her 2012 world tour with a “Concert of Peace” in Israel, and dedicated it to the 600 peace activists from the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum whom she invited to be her guests at the concert. She even declared in a mid-concert speech that “you can’t be a fan of Madonna’s if you are not a fan of peace.”

3) Joint Nonviolent Israeli-Palestinian Activism in the Field

Joint nonviolent Israeli-Palestinian activism against the occupation in the field is another powerful tool to promote consciousness-raising and achieve results against the human rights violations of the occupation. The joint Palestinian-Israeli demonstrations against the separation wall in Bil’in, Ni’lin and other locations; the joint demonstrations against the wall in Budrus, which were described so effectively in the film Budrus, produced by Just Vision; and over two years of joint Israeli-Palestinian demonstrations against the settlements in Sheikh Jarrah organized by Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity all build and contribute to the foundations for joint action against the occupation and serve as a role model for future Israeli- Palestinian cooperation.

4) Hunger Strikes by Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Jails

Hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are another very powerful nonviolent tool for action against the occupation, which resonate throughout the world. Inspired by the principles of Gandhi in the Indian struggle for freedom, the hunger strike tactic has been used effectively in many national liberation struggles. Abie Natan, the Israeli peace activist who ran the Voice of Peace radio station, used the hunger strike tactic in a 40-day protest against the settlements.

5) Upgrading the Palestinian Status in International Institutions

Another potentially effective Palestinian nonviolent tactic, this time at the official level, is the initiative to upgrade the Palestinian status in international institutions, beginning with the UN and its associated bodies, which would help to establish “facts in the international arena,” parallel to the way the Zionist movement established “facts in the international arena” via the Balfour Declaration and UNGA Resolution 181 (the Partition Plan). Such upgrading will also enable the Palestinians to have recourse to institutions which are responsible for international law, which can be a lever to help end the occupation and achieve national liberation.

6) Israeli-Palestinian Scientific Cooperation

Israeli-Palestinian scientific cooperation is another powerful nonviolent tool, which while not necessarily directed specifically against the occupation, builds the foundation for future Palestinian-Israeli cooperation, for the sake of both peoples.

A prime example was the report about cooperation between Israeli physicians and Palestinian physicians in Gaza who successfully identified a unique strain of the MRSA bacterium in Gaza City. This work is the product of a joint Palestinian-Israeli research group established in 2009, with Israeli Jewish and Arab physicians, and physicians from Gaza, including Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, who despite having tragically lost three young daughters and a niece during the Gaza War to IDF fire remains dedicated to cooperative activity. The activity of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian chapters of Friends of the Earth — Middle East, around the productive use of water resources is another good example.

7) Joint educational work of bereaved parents and former combatants

The joint educational work of the Israeli and Palestinian members of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, who have lost family members to the cycle of violence and bear witness and do consciousness-raising activities before Israeli and Palestinian youth is a very powerful emotional tool against violence, the conflict in general and the continuation of the occupation in particular. The same is true for the work of the Israeli and Palestinian members of Combatants for Peace, who formerly used violence against the other and came to the conclusion that nonviolence is the appropriate tactic for dealing with and resolving the conflict.

8) Innovative Intellectual, Consciousness-Raising and Advocacy by Joint NGOs

The innovative intellectual, educational, consciousness-raising and advocacy work of such joint NGOs as the Palestine-Israel Journal, Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), All For Peace Radio, Bitterlemons, the Geneva Initiative and OneVoice, are all prime examples of joint, nonviolent activity against the occupation. They help to develop the innovative ideas and strategies necessary to continue the struggle, and to build the constituencies necessary to support an end to the occupation and a resolution of the conflict.

9) The Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum

And finally, the ongoing activities of the 100 or so peace and human rights organizations involved in the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, both on a uni-national and bi-national basis, continues to be a powerful tool for working against the occupation, and signaling that “there is a partner” on the other side.

This is a personal list of suggestions. I’m sure that many additional ideas and initiatives can be added to the list.

To conclude, I recently attended a book launch in Tel Aviv for a book entitled The Politics of Victimhood by Dr. Ruth Amir. When she was asked what moved her to write the book, she pointed to her two young granddaughters who were present, and said, “First of all, for them, so that they can have a future.” The point is not to allow ourselves to be victims, or victimized, but to proactively seek effective ways to end the occupation, for the sake of both peoples.

*[This article was originally published by the , Vol. 18 No. 2/3, 2012, devoted to Civil Society Challenges].

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What’s Wrong with BDS? (Part 2/2) appeared first on 51�Թ�.
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Hillel Schenker, an Israeli journalist and peace activist, describes a recent meeting in Ramallah between Nabil Shaath and members of the Meretz Party. 

The post Nabil Shaath: “Palestinians Still Committed to Two States” appeared first on 51�Թ�.
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										Hillel Schenker, an Israeli journalist and peace activist, describes a recent meeting in Ramallah between Nabil Shaath and members of the Meretz Party. 

“We continue to believe in a two state solution” declared Dr. Nabil Shaath, the former Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority and currently Fatah’s Commissioner for International Relations. At a rare encounter, Shaath was met in Ramallah by over 70 members of the Meretz Party at President Mahmoud Abbas’ headquarters. Flanked by senior associates of Abbas, who was away at a summit meeting of the Organization of Islamic Countries in Mecca, Shaath said that “although many of us are Muslims, we have a secular program and definition of the state that we want, based upon internal democracy. We do not want to see a Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian Islamic state based upon religion.”

Later he added that while he supports Palestinian unity, he did not want to see political Islam triumph. He said that Hamas had bargained on the Arab Uprisings strengthening their position, but now they know it’s an illusion. And he believes that Hamas is afraid of internal Palestinian elections because they know that they would lose to Fatah. Shaath sees hope in the Arab Uprisings, and as someone who lived many years in Egypt and knows it well, he said that “Egypt will continue to be our bridge to the Arab world.”

Memories of Euphoria

Shaath recalled how he felt that the two peoples were on the road to a resolution of the conflict after the Oslo Accords were signed, and to rapprochement between Israel and the entire Arab world. He described how, on the way back from the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington, Yasser Arafat called the King of Morocco, and the President of Tunisia from the plane, asking them to receive Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“What euphoria there was then – the first time I visited Tel Aviv, taxi drivers refused to take payment from me!” When he decided to visit Jaffa, Shaath was warned that there might be problems from opponents of the accords, and it was suggested that he have a military and police escort. However, everywhere he went, “people invited me into their homes and offered me tea and coffee. And when I took a plane from Ben-Gurion airport, dozens of passengers came to ask me to sign their menus!”

He noted that real regional economic progress was being made at the Casablanca and Amman regional conferences, and that former Chief of Staff General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak had devoted a great deal of time and energy to formulating outlines for security arrangements together with the Palestinians, “to translate the vision of peace into a reality.” Most of us have forgotten that the Amman Economic Summit conference ended on October 31, 1995, just a week before Yigal Amir assassinated Prime Minister Rabin. Shaath was with Arafat when he heard the news that Rabin had been shot. He described how he had slumped into a chair, and said he was afraid that “today the peace has died.”

Formulating the Arab Peace Initiative

Still, despite the lack of progress during the following seven years, culminating in the failure of Camp David 2000, Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit on the Temple Mount and the outbreak of the violent second intifada, he noted that in 2002, Arafat sent him and Abbas to meet with Saudi Crown-Prince Abdullah, together with Egypt’s Amr Moussa, to develop the Saudi Initiative into what became the Arab Peace Initiative, ratified at the Arab League Summit Conference in 2002, and since reconfirmed a number of times. An initiative in which the entire Arab world offers Israel peace and normal relations in exchange for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, alongside the State of Israel, with an agreed upon solution to the refugee problem and Jerusalem.

“Ten years have passed” he said, “and nothing is left of the process or of peace,” adding “we wanted peace, not a process.”

Shaath said that he began his involvement in Israeli-Palestinian affairs in 1969 as a believer in a one-democratic secular state solution. He soon realized that the two-state solution was the realistic option.

“At Columbia University I realized we had genuine Israeli partners for peace”

“The Road to Peace Conference at Columbia University in 1989,” he said “was a turning point for me. That was when I realized that we had genuine partners for peace on the Israeli side.” He was referring to an initiative co-organized by the Israeli peace monthly New Outlook and the Palestinian daily Al-Fajr (an unofficial voice of the PLO). The move brought together about 25 Israelis and 25 Palestinians to a three day conference in New York, using a loophole in the Israeli law forbidding direct meetings with PLO representatives “unless they were in the context of an academic conference.” As one of the organizers of that conference, I have vivid memories of the occasion, and the fact that among the Israeli participants were Members of Knesset Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid and Yair Tzaban, all of whom were to become members of Yitzhak Rabin’s 1992 government, which was to sign the Oslo Accords. This is particularly poignant today, given that the surviving members of that government convened recently at the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv for a 20th anniversary reunion.

“Today, the Palestinian’s hope for peace has dwindled” he said, as they “continue to face the daily humiliations of the occupation,” which are exacerbated by ongoing Israeli settlement expansion, “particularly in Jerusalem.”

Yet instead of an Israeli government which is ready to seriously initiate progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian government, “we see an Israeli government which is dragging the Israeli people and us as well towards an unnecessary war with Iran.” Shaath added that if “Iran were to throw an atomic bomb on you, we would be also be affected.”

Three Options for the Future

Looking towards the future, he said that there are three options:

1) To build a coalition with Israeli forces to bring about a change in the Israeli government, to one that will be ready to seriously renew negotiations for a permanent status agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

2) International activism, as long as it is nonviolent. He declared that violence was costly for both sides, noting those who died in the “horrible suicide attacks.” He said that no-one wants to return to this.

3) To approach the UN General Assembly to ask for recognition of the Palestinian right to a state based on the 1967 borders. “We want to clarify that we are talking about occupied and not disputed territories, and that the only way forward is negotiations.”

In the follow-up discussion, both Shaath and some of the Meretz members in the audience noted that UN recognition of a Palestinian state was also a reaffirmation of recognition of the State of Israel in the 1967 borders.

I later asked one of the members of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department present, if he wasn’t afraid that such a move in the UN would lead to an American and Israeli cutting off of funds to the Palestinians. His response was he didn’t believe that either the Americans or the Israelis wanted to see the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

Shaath said that he didn’t know if the approach to the UN would work, but added that “the pain of peace is better than the pain of war, and the Israeli occupation is killing us.”

A lively question and answer period followed with the Meretz people, who included former Members of Knesset Mossi Raz and Anat Maor; Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yosef (Pepe) Alalu; Prof. Dan Jacobson chair of the Political Committee of the Israeli Peace NGO Forum; Israel J-Street representative Yael Patir; Prof. Galia Golan; lawyer Yifat Solel who chairs the Meretz Forum Against the Occupation; Dr. Alla Shainskaya chair of the Our Heritage; Charter for Democracy group of Russian immigrants, former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch and many others.

Committed to Working With Israelis to End the Occupation

In the course of the discussion, when the question of the Palestinian anti-normalization and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaigns was raised, Shaath said that he and his colleagues were committed to working together with Israelis like the Meretz activists who want to end the occupation and believe in the primacy of peace between the two peoples. He noted that the Labor Party, which used to be a partner during Rabin’s time, now seems to only be interested in socio-economic questions. Shaath added that “Fatah has not made any decisions to stop dialogue with Israeli peace activists,” and there is a clear difference between joint struggle and normalization.

He concluded by saying that, despite everything, “we in Fatah and the PA have not given up on a two state solution. The only alternative to a two state solution is either protracted conflict or an apartheid state.”

After the two hour meeting ended, all the guests went to visit Yasser Arafat’s temporary tomb, which lies in an impressive building in the Muqata at the end of a plaza surrounded by flora and fauna from different parts of Palestine.

Since the meeting took place during Ramadan, Shaath and his colleagues apologized for the fact they were not able to demonstrate normal Palestinian hospitality, though they did receive a special religious dispensation to provide bottles of water to their visitors. They urged their guests to return again after Ramadan ends, so that they could benefit from regular Palestinian gastronomic hospitality.

*[This article was originally published by ].

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Nabil Shaath: “Palestinians Still Committed to Two States” appeared first on 51�Թ�.