After the Speeches (Gabriel Levin)

Gabriel, I have never found a convincing argument that explains how any Land for Peace solution could provide a lasting peace as advertised. After reading Alex’s and now your piece I still am left empty, without any real concept of how such a plan can make anything better for either the Palestinain Arabs OR the Israelis.

What is naive is the idea that the arab masses will ever be satisfied with some disjointed, inferior state, that, compared to Israel, is impoverished and weak. Also not taken into account in this proposal is assuming the arabs will forgo their primary motivation for opposing Israel in the first place: the Right of Arab Return to Israel proper to receive the land that they claim was stolen and still rightfully theirs. Also to be assumed: the Moslems who are currently living inside Israel would be willing to abandon all their religious claims and pledge allegiance to a Jewish State they feel took what rightfully and eternally should belong to them.

This doesn’t even take into account the logistics nightmare Israel will face, with obligations to provide water, rations and basic humanitarian assistance for a new Arab State that doesn’t even recognize the Jewish State’s right to exist and blames them for their hardships, while also dealing with the Arab’s right as an independent nation to acquire arms as they see fit.

Also, let us not forget that Israel will somehow have to expel by force about 300,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria before any of this is possible, and somehow find them appropriate housing in Israel proper. That is no easy or cheap undertaking to say the least, yet nobody has even bothered to discuss how this would be done.

I see no solution by this approach, just more of the same wrangling over hyporthetical impossibilities. If Israel is to succeed at creating peace with the arabs it will come from relocating the arabs to a viable country that shares their culture, identity, language, religion, and national pride. There is only one that has all this, and it’s Jordan, the country that already has a Palestinian majority in place, resources, and the land mass for them to live comfortably.

I can’t for the life of me understand why that discussion is not taking place among the political leaders of Israel, the United States and Jordan. Until it is, this is all just a waste of breath.

“The Palestinians still seem bent on destroying Israel while complaining that Israel isn’t moving towards peace [...]“

… is the real glowing error that mars this otherwise fine piece.

After Cairo, people like Saeb Erekat were positively glowing with praise and excited at the prospects of restarting the negotiations, pledging they would keep their side of the bargain.

Well before Cairo, Hamas was already making somewhat different noises with regards to the acceptance of a Palestinian State along 1967 borders and long term peace through an Islamic Hudna.

Where are, at least for the moment, Hamas’ rockets or suicide bombings?
Do you also consider the many by and large peaceful Arab protests aimed at preventing further illegal land expropriations as a manifestation of the ‘desire to destroy Israel’? How about the legal actions, like the one against Veolia that was highly effective?

No, the Palestinians aren’t collectively and magically going to stick some flowers in their hair but your characterisation is dishonest and aimed at sharing the blame. But for the moment the intransigence is very much with the Israeli Government and if I go by what you write, the Israeli general public (many exceptions notwithstanding, of course).

On the RoR there must be wriggle room: ‘honouring’ it can mean a lot of things. It’s up to negotiators and the mediator Mitchell to try and reach a compromise.

The bland ‘they want this literally’ is another over-simplification. Like the Government, Hamas (for instance) seeks to maximise starting positions (you yourself have described the settlements as bargaining chips not long ago). RoR can be honoured in many ways, none of them satisfactory but put together they can form an acceptable package, without anywhere near meeting the demand of literal return of refugees and their descendants to their birthplaces.

Without talks, nothing can proceed and nothing will stop Israel from continuing to settle the WB. There is nothing or no-one that will stop it: Barak authorizes construction of 300 new homes in West Bank Ha’aretz.

I’m not so sure about the land swaps though: seems like an entirely new ball game with its own complications and much untested ground to be explored. Again, if Israel continues building, then even that becomes a pipe dream: how much of Israel proper do you want to swap? We’re almost playing G-d here…

Mad Zionist:

You’re essentially asking for the world to sanction moving a population the size of Flanders (Belgium), to pack their bags and move to another country, to humour the Walloons of Belgium. You can’t see how absurd that demand is and that the world, despite your rationalisations and protestations, will never accept that?

Where would it end? Countries and populations as a form of musical chairs?

Humouring demands for Arab transfer would be rewarding bad behaviour…

“True morality is finding borders that work for BOTH peoples, not creating a lose/lose situation.”

And expelling Palestinians from their homes makes sense for them???

“Gabriel, I’m not sure how it is immoral to transfer people a few miles to a completely viable state of, but is moral to stuff them into a disjointed, incongruous, and untenable state.”

Madzionist, how do expect people to engage you seriously when what you’re proposing is ethnic cleansing (which, before you say, rehousing of settlers isn’t equivalent to, although I’m not saying that that isn’t problematic either) on an extraordinary scale? Relocation is only appropriate as a benign, neutral term when there is consent. If you do think there should be consent before such a plan is implemented – as, to be fair, the “negotiated transfer” you also mention implies – it’s you who is naive. What evidence is there that the Palestian residents of the West Bank are amenable to such an idea? None.

As for the above dichotomy, and these ones:

“Is living in a refugee camp more moral? Is living as a nationless people longing in squaller for what never really was and what can never be healthy? ”

…they are, of course, completely false. Of course the latter is unacceptable, that’s why settlement building should cease and ultimately the majority of settlements in the West Bank be dismantled or exchanged for land in Israel. If you think the above formula naive, produce evidence to show the Palestinians would accept transfer voluntarily.

Also, you seem to speak a lot about what the Palestinian ‘masses’ believe / want, in perpetuity. What about the contradictions in what people believe in / identify with? What about the idea that with an incrementalist approach, greater economic / cultural cooperation / empowering moderates etc. these beliefs can change?

Mad Zionist:

“Think about transfer as relocation. Jews relocated by the tens of millions to Israel and America in the 20th century, today the arabs also seek to relocate to Israel by the millions while transferring a third of a million Jews out of Judea/Samaria, so if there is going to be any resolution to this conflict there WILL BE millions of people relocating no matter how you slice it.”

In 1947 – 1948 some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced under cover of war. Legally, as does any group that flees or is made to flee the theatre of war, they had the right to return after cessation of hostilities (see Article 49 of the Geneva Convention). This right was denied them. Today these people and their descendants are refugees, many (ironically) in refugee camps in the WB, others in refugee camps in Gaza, others in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and have been for all that time (!).

In 1967 another 250,000 people befell the same fate and they too are still waiting to return to the places they were expelled from.

You now want to complete the job by semi-legal means and for faked pseudo-humanitarian reasons. It’s not gonna wash. Get over it.

Mad Zionist:

“You obsessively seek to reap vengeance upon the Jews, make them suffer at any cost for all that they have done so wickedly. You want to take all they now have and possess and destroy it at any price, and why? Because you want a better life for those arabs whom you falsely claim to advocate for? No, not even a little. You advocate out of pure hatred and bitterness towards Jews, while the Palestinians are merely your prop, your tool, your toy to use in your personal quest to make the Jews pay in blood for how they have ruined the world as you see it.”

When lazy Zionists run out of arguments, there’s always the doomsday weapon: pull the anti-Semitism card! (Except that that weapon nowadays always fizzles – yawn.)

Past Jewish suffering doesn’t absolve Zionists from their crimes, Mad Zionist. Increasingly your American brethren are beginning to see that too… Zionism’s free pass has expired.

You don’t need to make me aware of past persecution, tyranny, colonisation and imperialism: I’m a principled anti-colonialist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist, hell-bent on preventing more of the (past) same in the present and future.

BTW, the American population is about 300 million, not 400 million. Most are descendants of settlers and immigrants (and not actual immigrants) and enjoy full rights in that country. European immigration policy is very similar to American.

You huff and you puff…

Nick, rational people are capable of understanding reason. Right now the Palestinians want to defeat Israel and replace it with Palestine. That will not happen. Very few are satisfied with a disjointed semi-state combining a chunk of West Bank, a section of Jerusalem and the separated sliver of Gaza, so clearly we need a better solution.

If my plan were to be seriously proposed by the powers that be I am quite confident it would be viewed as beneficial by most Palestinians and Israelis alike. It’s the Jordanian government that would understandably require the most convincing, which is why it would be my recommendation that the Israelis and Jordanians meet directly to begin discussions on how to make it work logistically and financially. The Jordanian army on the East Bank would be needed to help facilitate the move of their brethren on the West Bank for obvious reasons. It would have to come in stages, incrementally if you will, so that it doesn’t overwhelm the infrastructure.

Gaza would be the final piece. To relocate the Palestinians would require full cooperation from Egypt, Jordan and Israel alike, so all sides would need to be on the same page to make it work. It would not be easy, there would be those who would still fight any compromise among the ranks of the Palestinians and try to sabotage the process, so it would be absolutely critical to have Jordan and Egypt be completely on board to prevent such rogues from blowing up the process.

The first step is to begin dialog with both Jordan and the Palestinians in a giant, diplomatic summit. Unfortunately, no leaders have the courage to discuss anything more than the same failed, tired ideas that came out of Oslo over 20 years ago.

Gert, you are a cartoonish, run-of-the-mill, Judeophobe, who views Palestinian suffering as an activists tool for the collective punishment of Jews. Your total disregard for the well being of the Palestinians is embarassingly transparent. Yes, by all means just focus on punishing Zionists, be obsessed with it actually, and if a resolution to the conflict were to happen without the Jews or Palestinians suffering oppose it with great prejudice.

Tell the truth, Gert: Just the thought of harsh and brutal payback meted out against the Jews gives you serious wood.

>> I still have some hope in Obama’s ability to force all sides towards some solution.

It is soooooooo not gonna work out that way.