This article appeared this morning, and raised questions as to the two state solution. I went on Ha'aretz in English for more direct information and foundanother article which, starting in about the fourth paragraph, also discussed which may or may not be the same subject.
Plainly, Israelis are upset at those who do the "Go back to ..." meme, but the two and their slightly different tones gave me serious concern about a separate, if related issue, which I raise here for discussion.
My question is whether the concern is that at least the government in Israel fears that ANY legitimation, recognition or creation of an independent and autonomous Palestinian State MUST lead to delegitimization of the Israeli State at the same stroke. As if what they believe is that both cannot exist side by side and creation of the Palestinian state is a form of doom for their own. The articles plainly reflect woe at the serious international reduction in support for the present policy of Israel, , but it may well go much deeper.
The speaker in the first article is a national security advisor to Mr. Netahyahu, and has apparently been a national security voice to be heeded for some time in Israel. The reporting when I went for his bio suggested that in a prior time he advocated against Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in the days of Sharon, because it detracted from concerns he had at that early date about Iran.
What troubles me about the article is the notion that it suggests a concern which might preclude any permanent peace deal carrying into effect good old Res. 181, the UN res which authorized in one res both the creation of the Israeli state and a Palestinian state, after the Second World War. Not just one but both. The readers here may not dispute the propriety of an independent Palestinian state in usual terms, but the question is not so much what we think as what the Israelis think because they are the direct participants in this conflict, not us, and they make their own decisions on the footings for those decisions they believe in, not on what we or others think.
In the case of the speaker here, his notion seems to be that it is the forwarding of the notion and creation of a Palestinian state, the substance of that, which is reducing and in some ways delegitimating Israel generally. Not that the tactical conduct of Israeli governments may have that effect as to particular conduct, which can be changed with changes of policy or changes of government, but the whole Israeli shebang. The unstated implication to me of his statements is that Israel would not suffer delegitimation if the Palestinian statehood process were not being pushed by those pushing it and were not going forward, no matter how badly. If he were a mere academic and not the national security advisor to the Prime Minister, and therefor someone whose thoughts were among the many and not among the few to whom the Prime Minister officially agrees to listen, it would be different. I would so love to be wrong about this. But if it made it to WaPo, somebody made him available to make the statements, given who he is, and it is a serious matter. Yes, this might be trying to make a moleholl or at least a decent foothill into an entire mountain, in the hopes that the listeners will not be prepared to risk the entire mountain and will let up on the molehill/foothill to avoid that, but it does not seem so to me.
I interpret Mr. Netanyahu's remarks initially as annoyance that the current crisis has brought out the 'Send 'em all home' folk which he objects to, but those folk come out every crisis, so they should not be a surprise or a suddenly more menacing presence in the conversation at this time.
What seems to be bothering the Prime Minister in this iteration is the unprecedentedly large opposition Israel is getting from theretofore supportive official governmental places which he sees arising from the Flotilla confrontation, and other things such as Operation Cast Lead. Which may lead to a concern that such official opposition has more of the kiss of 'whole shebang' delegitimization to him, possibly the step after being repeatedly accused of being an outlaw state, than we here are reading into it. In the worst way he does not want Israel to be like North Korea because Israelis live on trade, and are not a hermit kingdom which would saw itself off from the rest of the world if it could. And the port blockades, boycotts and and bars on Israeli shipping whisper just that.
And their opponents are getting smarter in some ways. Unlike prior attempts, the 'break the blockade' tactic is working well in places where Israel was once in its own estimation safe from official criticism and political response. The settlers did not provoke that, the attacks on refugee camps did not, the most recent Lebanon war did not, but the blockade running has.
According to the reporting I found this morning, the ship headed from Lebanon is going first to Cyprus which may or may not allow it to sail from there, because of the existing 'state of war' between Israel and Lebanon which prohibits it from going directly. When the Israeli UN ambassador in pleading that nations not allow the ship to go forward referred to a 'possible' connection between that ship and Hezbollah, Hezbollah itself spoke up and said it had had nothing to do with getting the ship and supplies together at all and none of its people in the mission, so as to avoid the risk that Israel might attack Lebanon in response to any participation by it, no matter how much it might like the idea of getting humanitarian supplies through the blockade. And the current ship is carrying the moving parties of that effort, a group comprised solely of Christian and Muslim women, as to whom the use of force on them would have horrendous political effects.
Hamas also moved differently, now refusing a visit to the captured trooper, Gilad Shalit, by the ICRC because they feared specifically that the visit would identify his location and immediately lead to a military attack from Israel to free him. The trooper's family is now publicly threatening to camp on the Prime Minister's lawn unless and until the government does something about getting him back really really soon.
And Malaysia, not a party with any dog in the territorial or regional politics of the I/P situation, is now asking for an emergency US meeting on the flotilla confrontation, and the Secretary General has not backed down on demanding an international investigation.
The same edition of Ha'aretz carrying the article I linked also carried as news articles a Belgian attempt to accuse various ministers including Ehud Barak and Ms. Livni of war crimes arising from Cast Lead, in a Belgian court where it might go forward this time and not be eliminated on procedural grounds, and a lawsuit announced in Athens on behalf of thirty-three Greeks involved in the Flotilla confrontation, charging Israel in that with violating international law, which sounds like it could be brought and tried in Athens. Another article advised that thirteen Balkan states had condemned the Flotilla confrontation despite Muslim-Christian issues in that area, and another that the Council of Europe was cranking up resolutions. I therefore infer that those independently reported events and others simply not in today's Israeli papers, give weight to the current ruminations on delegitimization. That Israel's international acceptance is dropping in a way that bothers them greatly, but in a way they react to differently than we, outside the field of battle, react to it. It may well be that they think fixing the blockade will not make the problems go away, and may indeed make them grow into a spot where its very existence is at peril, not just its borders or the blockade, because the international official opposition will not allow itself to be mollified by less.
This brings me to preconditions for doing a deal. Israel has them, of which the first is the recognition of Israel as a legitimate and "Jewish" state, which carries with it the insistence that the Palestinian refugees can never return, because of demographic issues and security after sixty years of refugee living and the resulting resentment if not open hostility. Without any realistic provision for their fate if they cannot return, because the realism to Israel is that there is now no room literally for them in Israel, their politics aside. The Palestinian Authority has its precondition, removal of the settlers from the West Bank, they being gone already from Gaza and thereby demonstrating it can be done if Israel has the will to do it, under the Rule of One. Israel's separate peace negotiations with Syria has one from the Syrians, the return to Syria of the Golan Heights.
But what in this makes it impossible to do a deal and thereby eliminate the delegitimization, since the most obvious out is do a deal, no matter how ugly, and end the conflict and the ongoing and worsening delegitimization that goes with it? This is where careful thought by others is needed. I DO NOT believe that they simply miss the point that Palestinians are persons of equal human dignity to themselves and equally entitled per capita to whatever good life is available living in the Holy Land. Israeli governments are many things, but that kind of stupid is not one of them.
Part of me wonders if the practical problem is whether the Israeli government has concluded that they cannot make a go of it if permanently limited to the 1967 boundaries, especially if or when Golan is also possibly gone in exchange for peace, either to the Palestinians or to the Syrians or divided between them. There are hugely more people than were involved at foundation, both from natural increase in both Palestinians and Israelis whose ancestors or who were there at foundation of Israel before the first shot was fired, and from immigration via aliyah in Israel, and natural increase of those as well. And the entire area is very small and has limited access to essential resources such as water without which none of them can live securely in an age of global warming in what is already a difficult land physically to live in. And its opponents basically insist on the 1967 lines, in no small part because their own civilians also have the same physical needs and there are more people but no more resources than before.
Part of me wonders if another practical problem is that until now and the insistence of the international community, including the US which is putting Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Blair, whatever you think else of him, in there every day to keep plugging on getting the talks done and the peace done, is that what may or probably will not be recognized is those de facto 'on the ground fact' changes in conditions wrought by the Settlers, as a class of problem with several wrinkles, will not be allowed to stay a done deal, and they can't figure out how to deal with a monster they created but perhaps now cannot control. In my personal opinion, I am not sure if all or even most would return to Israel proper if the government asked or demanded they do so, and then there would be literal battles if forced removal were attempted, certainly if done by the Palestinians or some international force, and probably even if Israel did it itself. Just leaving them there virtually guarantees an almost automatic civil war there analogous to what would happen if all of the refugees were admitted to Israel proper, in view of the hostility of the groups (Settlers/Palestinians or Refugees/Israelis) on whatever side of the line they might be found, either an event in which the other independent state might be pulled into. And I have no idea where behind the '67 line they would put them all.
In summary, that a successful push for the independent State of Palestine will create problems they have looked at and believe that they cannot solve and still be the viable Israeli Jewish state which is their core purpose for being may be the problem. And the delegitimation of a sort which they are now undergoing is a consequence of that push, which they can't figure out how to avoid. A place they cannot permit themselves to go, but one which the growing international pressure arising from the Flotilla confrontation and the blockade will not permit to be done otherwise. Hence the tie between the promoting of the creation of a Palestinian State and the delegitimization of the Israeli state as a necessary consequence of their not doing that as their fear. The statement is that it is the push, not the creation that is the cause of the delegitimation.
Where this takes them, other than further intransigence, I do not know. The Palestinians are not going away, having no other place to go. And the side effects of Israel's choices have now sufficiently aroused the international community that the status quo is no longer maintainable either, no matter how ugly it is, and the objections to Israeli governmental choices are only going to get louder, now that the dam is broken on public criticism.