Israel's Fated Bleak Future
July 2010
By John J. Mearsheimer
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has finally coaxed Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He and most Americans hope that the talks will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, that is not going to happen. Instead, those territories are almost certain to be incorporated into a "Greater Israel," which will then be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa.
There are four possible futures regarding Israel and the occupied territories. The outcome that gets the most attention is the two-state solution, where a Palestinian state would control 95 percent or more of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and territorial swaps would compensate the Palestinians for those small pieces of the West Bank that Israel would keep. East Jerusalem would be its capital.
The alternatives to a two-state solution all involve creating a Greater Israel—an Israel that effectively controls Gaza and the West Bank. In the first scenario, it would become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, since Palestinians would eventually outnumber Jews.
Israel could also expel most of the Palestinians from Greater Israel, preserving its Jewish character through ethnic cleansing. Something similar happened in 1948, when the Zionists drove 700,000 Palestinians out of the territory that became Israel. The final alternative is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the occupied territories, but allows the Palestinians to exercise limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves.
The two-state solution is the best of these alternatives, but most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state. There are about 480,000 settlers in the occupied territories and an extensive infrastructure of connector and bypass roads, not to mention the settlements themselves. A Hebrew University Truman Institute poll in March of West Bank settlers found that 21 percent believe that "all means must be employed to resist the evacuation of most West Bank settlements, including the use of arms." They needn't worry, however, because Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is committed to expanding the settlements throughout the occupied territories.
Of course, there are prominent Israelis like former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who do favor a two-state solution. But that does not mean that they would be willing or able to make the concessions necessary to create a legitimate Palestinian state. Olmert did not do so when he was prime minister, and it is unlikely that he or Livni could get enough of their fellow citizens to back a genuine two-state solution. The political center of gravity in Israel has shifted sharply to the right over the past decade, and there is no sizable pro-peace political party or movement they could turn to for help.
Some advocates of a two-state solution believe the Obama administration can compel Israel to accept a two-state outcome. The United States, after all, is the most powerful country in the world and should have great leverage over Israel, because it gives the Jewish state so much diplomatic and material support.
But no American president can pressure Israel to change its policies toward the Palestinians. The main reason is the Israel lobby, a powerful coalition of American Jews and Christian evangelicals that has a profound influence on U.S. Middle East policy. Alan Dershowitz was spot on when he said, "My generation of Jews…became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fund-raising effort in the history of democracy."
Consider that every American president since 1967 has opposed settlement building, yet none has been able to get Israel to stop building them. There is little evidence that Obama is different from his predecessors. Shortly after taking office, he demanded that Israel stop all settlement building in the occupied territories. Netanyahu refused and Obama caved in to him. The president recently made it clear that he wants Israel to stop building in East Jerusalem. In response, Netanyahu said that Israel would never stop building there, because it is an integral part of the Jewish state. Obama, under pressure from the lobby, has remained silent and certainly has not threatened to punish Israel.
The best Obama can hope for is to push forward the so-called peace process, but most people understand that these negotiations are a charade. The two sides will engage in endless talks while Israel continues to colonize Palestinian lands. The likely result, therefore, will be a Greater Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
But who will live there and what kind of political system will it have?
It will not be a democratic binational state, at least not in the near future. The vast majority of Israel's Jews have no interest in living in a state dominated by Palestinians. Ethnic cleansing would guarantee that Greater Israel retains a Jewish majority, but that murderous strategy would do enormous damage to Israel's moral fabric, to its relationship with Jews in the Diaspora, and to its international standing. No genuine friend of Israel could support this crime against humanity.
The most likely outcome is that Greater Israel will become a full-fledged apartheid state. There are already separate laws, separate roads and separate housing in the occupied territories, and the Palestinians are essentially confined to impoverished enclaves. Indeed, two former Israeli prime ministers—Ehud Barak and Olmert—have made just this point. Olmert said that if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a "South African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue, "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."
Olmert is correct. A Jewish apartheid state is not sustainable over the long term. The discrimination and repression that underpin apartheid are antithetical to core Western values. How could anyone make a moral case for it in the United States, where democracy is venerated and segregation and racism are routinely condemned? It is equally hard to imagine the United States having a "special relationship" with an apartheid state. It is much easier to imagine Americans strongly opposing that racist state's political system and working hard to change it. An apartheid Israel would also be a strategic liability for the United States.
This is why, in the end, Greater Israel will become a democratic binational state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. This will mean the end of the Zionist dream.
What is truly remarkable about this situation is that the lobby is effectively helping Israel destroy its own future as a Jewish state. On top of that, there is an alternative outcome that would be relatively easy to achieve and is clearly in Israel's best interests: the two-state solution. It is hard to understand why Israel and its American supporters are not working overtime to create a viable Palestinian state and why instead they are moving full-speed ahead to build an apartheid state. It makes no sense from either a moral or a strategic perspective.
John J. Mearsheimer teaches political science at the University of Chicago and is the co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (available from the AET Book Club). This op-ed first appeared in the Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2010. Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune. Reprinted with permission.
A Fantasy
By Uri Avnery
I ADMIRE Prof. John Mearsheimer. His rigorous logic. His lucid presentation. His rare moral courage.
I was very honored to host him and his colleague, Prof. Stephen Walt, in Tel Aviv, after their book about the Israel lobby in the U.S. provoked a furor.
And I don't agree with his conclusions.
On April 29, Professor Mearsheimer delivered an impressive lecture in Washington, DC [summarized in his op-ed]. He presented a profound analysis of the chances of Israel surviving in the long term. Every Israeli who is concerned about the future of his state should grapple with this analysis.
The professor does not hide his opinion that the two-state solution is by far the best. But he believes that it is "dead." Greater Israel, ruling over all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, already exists. It is an apartheid state that will steadily become more consolidated and more brutal—until its collapse.
This is a frightening prognosis. It is also very logical. If current developments continue in a straight line, this is exactly what will happen.
But I do not believe in straight lines. There are very few straight lines in nature, and there are no straight lines in the life of nations and states.
In the 86 years of my life, innumerable unforeseen things have happened, and innumerable expected things have not come about. The fate of nations is governed by unexpected factors. They are shaped by human beings, who are by nature unpredictable creatures.
Who foresaw in 1928 that Adolf Hitler would come to power in Germany? Who in 1941 foresaw that the Red Army would stop the invincible Wehrmacht? Who in 1939 foresaw the Holocaust? Who in 1945 foresaw the creation of the State of Israel? Who in 1989 foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union? Who foresaw, the day before it happened, the fall of the Berlin Wall? Who foresaw the Khomeini revolution? Who foresaw the election of a black U.S. president?
Of course, one cannot build plans on the unexpected. But it should be taken into account. It is irrational to discount the irrational.
I do not accept the professor's judgment that "most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state." As an Israeli living and fighting in Israel, I am convinced that the great majority of Israelis are ready to accept the necessary conditions, which are well-known to all: a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, the 1967 borders with minimal land swaps, a mutually acceptable solution for the refugee problem.
The real problem is that most Israelis do not believe that peace is possible. Dozens of years of propaganda have convinced them that "we have no partner for peace." Events on the ground (as seen through Israeli eyes) have confirmed this view. If this perception is dissolved, everything is possible.
In this, President Obama could play a big role. I believe that this is his real mission: to prove that it is possible. That there is a partner out there. That there is a guarantee for the security of Israel. And—yes—that the alternative is frightening.
Can the settlements be removed? Will there ever be an Israeli government that will have the guts to do so? Where is the leader who will undertake this Herculean task?
The professor is right that "there is nobody with that kind of standing in Israeli politics today." And that "there is no sizable pro-peace party or movement."
Yet history shows that exceptional leaders often appear when they are needed. I have seen in my own lifetime a failed and generally detested politician called Winston Churchill become a national hero. And a reactionary general called Charles de Gaulle liberate Algeria. And a grey Communist apparatchik called Mikhail Gorbachev dismantle a huge empire without a drop of blood being shed. And the election of a guy called Barack Obama.
I have also seen a brutal general called Ariel Sharon, the father of the settlements, destroying a series of settlements. His intentions may be debatable, but the facts cannot be disputed: he challenged the settlers' movement—which Professor Mearsheimer describes in all its fearful menace—and won easily. In face of the total opposition of the settlers and their allies, he evacuated some 20 settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Not a single military unit mutinied. Not a single person was killed or seriously injured.
Sure, there is a quantitative and qualitative difference between Sharon's "separation" and that task in front of us. But it is a big mistake to view the "settlers" as a monolithic structure. They are split into several different sectors—the inhabitants of the East Jerusalem neighborhoods do not resemble the West Bank settlers, the buyers of cheap apartments in Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim do not resemble the zealots of Yitzhar and Tapuach, the Orthodox in Modi'in-Illit and Immanuel do not resemble the "Youth of the Hills."
If a peace agreement is achieved, it will be necessary to approach the evacuation job with determination, but also with finesse. For the inhabitants of the East Jerusalem neighborhoods, a solution will be found in the framework of the agreement about Jerusalem. A large number of settlers near the Green Line will remain where they are in the framework of a fair exchange of territory. Another large part will return home, if they know that apartments are ready and waiting for them in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. For some of them there may be a possibility to find an accommodation with the Palestinian government. In the end, the hard core of Messianic settlers will not give up easily. They may use arms. But a strong leader will stand the test, if the great majority of the Israeli public support the peace agreement.
The two-state solution is not the best solution. It is the only solution.
The alternative is not a democratic, secular binational state, because such a state will not come into being. Neither people wants it.
As the professor rightly maintains, in the absence of peace, Israel will rule from the sea to the river. The present situation will go on and become worse: the sovereign State of Israel holding on to the occupied territories.
Except for a tiny group of dreamers, who can be gathered in a medium-sized room, there are no Israelis who dream of living in a binational state, in which the Arabs constitute the majority. If such a state came into being, Israeli Jews would just emigrate. But it is much more plausible that the reverse would happen: the Palestinians would emigrate long before that.
Ethnic cleansing does not have to take the form of a dramatic expulsion, as in 1948. It can take place quietly, in a creeping process, when more and more Palestinians simply give up. That is the great dream of the settlers and their partners: to make life for the Palestinians so miserable that they take their families and leave.
Either way, life in this country will turn into hell. Not for one year, but for dozens of years. Both sides will be violent. The idea of Palestinian "nonviolent resistance" is a pipe-dream. The professor's hope that in the putative binational state, the Palestinians would not treat the Jews as the Jews are treating them now has been disproved by the Jews themselves—the persecution they have suffered throughout the ages has not inoculated them against becoming persecutors themselves.
There is a gap in the professor's analysis: he does not explain how the violent Israeli apartheid state will "develop" into an ideal binational state. In his opinion, this will come about "eventually," after "some years." How many? And how?
OK, there will be pressures. World public opinion will turn against Israel. The Jews in the Diaspora will distance themselves. But how will all this bring about a binational state?
Any comparison with South Africa is unsound. There is no real similarity between the situation that prevailed there and the situation that exists—or will exist in the future—here. Except for some methods of persecution, all the circumstances, in all fields, are vastly different.
(To mention just one: the apartheid regime was finally brought down not by international pressure, but by the massive and crippling strikes of the black work force. In this country, the occupation authorities do everything to prevent Palestinians from coming to work in Israel.)
In the end, it is a matter of logic: if international pressure does not succeed in convincing the Israelis to accept the two-state solution, which does no harm to their national identity, how will it compel them to give up everything they have—their state, their identity, their culture, their economy, all they have built in a huge endeavor of 120 years?
Is it not much more plausible to assume that long before their state collapses under all the pressures, Israelis would embrace the two-state solution?
I completely agree with the professor: the main obstacle to peace is psychological. What is needed is a profound change of perceptions, before the Israeli public can be brought to recognize reality and accept peace, with all it entails.
That is the main task facing the Israeli peace camp: to change the basic perceptions of the public. I am certain that this is possible. We have already traveled a long road from the days of "There are no Palestinians!" and "Jerusalem united for all eternity!" Professor Mearsheimer's analysis may well contribute to this process.
An apartheid state or a binational state? Neither. But the free State of Palestine side by side with the free State of Israel, in the common homeland.
Source;Washington Report
On Middle East Affairs
© PalestineFreeVoice Copyright reserved 2003 - 2011
Intellectual Rights Retained
Best viewed with Mozilla-FireFox
No comments:
Post a Comment