Avishai

The Editor responds to an article by Bernard Avishai deploring the depredations of the Hebron settlers

(the article is reproduced below)

"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and a striving after wind."

Between the lines, this article reveals a great deal about the thinking of Zionist intellectuals still trying to keep the dream alive, although most of humanity has long since come to recognize it as a nightmare. I have just read Mr. Avishai's entry in Wikipedia - he's a poster boy for the image that thoughtful Zionists would like to project. It is truly an impressive CV; his mother must be proud of having such a macher for a son. He is just the opposite of the ignorant, genocidal settlers that he is writing about. A Canadian/American Israeli of Ashkenazi extraction born to a professional Zionist father, he has both a practical and theoretical background in political economy, journalism, technology, business and education, and has been published by numerous highly respected magazines, so I think we can safely say that he knows whereof he speaks. To top it off, he has been on the receiving end of fundamentalist Zionist fury, no doubt earning the sobriquet of "self-hating Jew" along the way. That's why it's so instructive to see what he has to say.

It is important when discussing certain subjects that terms like Zionist and Zionism be defined, so that the reader knows at least what the writer means by it. I define Zionism as the ideology that gave rise to, and continues to provide a rationale for, the Jewish State. A Zionist, it follows, buys into that ideology. In this respect thinkers like Avishai are called, among other things, soft or Left Zionists. This term is applied to people who remain Zionists, but are critical of some Israeli actions and the more rigid, bellicose thinking of exponents of Jabotinskian political Zionism, like say, Netanyahu. He does not appear to be (at least from reading the article), what is referred to as a progressive Zionist, those who stress the suffering of the Palestinians - who are perceived by progressives as fellow human beings rather than something sub-human, caricatures of the "enemy." All of these folks are - bottom line - Zionists, because they assert that Israel, as a Jewish State, has a legal and/or an inherent "right to exist."

To sum up, Avishai's piece presents the view that the settler problem presents a new "existential threat" to the Jewish State. From a strategic point of view, his remark that "we will need the world's involvement" is a direct challenge to the conventional Israeli view that "the world" can go to hell. It is based on his awareness that America's blind support will not be sufficient to bring about the tired but still kicking notion of a "two state solution." The Europeans (up until now proud members of the Empire though meekly servile to Rome), just might balk at the continued tolerance for an out and out Nazi element threatening to upset the political balance of Israel, leaving America alone to prop up the Jewish State. There is also the very real possibility that the majority of American Jews - always conflicted about Israel - will finally rebel against the Zionist powers that be, leaving Israel at the mercy of its newly energized neighbors.

Although support for the two state solution was never endorsed by the Israelis until just recently (and they're still not serious about it, nor is it yet endorsed by the American Zionist elite), people like Avishai realize that it is the last best hope for survival of some version of the Jewish State. In the last analysis, however, I suspect that even people like Avishai know in their hearts that the whole thing is, and always was, an exercise in futility. The Hebron phenomenon is just the most obvious example of what has always been true - the peoples of that land are inextricably interconnected (barring all out genocide which it is difficult to imagine the world would tolerate). What is inevitable is that Jews and Palestinians will end up sharing the land and the polity, and the sooner this happens the less likely will be a resurgence of an antisemitism that would make even the Nazis of the Third Reich look like pikers, not to mention the very real likelihood of a worldwide nuclear confrontation sparked by diehard Zionists quite willing to obliterate most of humanity in defense of Eretz Yisroel.

For more info on the One State Solution go to http://tinyurl.com/8szw37 .

"Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, and I shall repay."

Hebron Agonistes: Too Much For Israel, by Bernard Avisha

It has been common for educated Israelis to think, and Israeli diplomats and American Jewish leaders to present, the settler community of Hebron as a kind of radical nuisance. Presumably, the settlers are a side-show of a defensive strategic policy, a touch of hubris gone wrong, a little understandible selfishness after centuries of self-effacement--anyway, a line that can be moved when the time is right, certainly not a country within a country that has grown, SimCity-like, into something the size of the Jewish colony in Palestine in 1946.

In this view--not entirely wrong--the settlers were post-1967 Israelis only more so: people who took classical Zionist ideas about settling the Land of Israel a little too seriously, or took the Jews' election a little too literally, or accepted cheap mortgages from the Jewish Agency a little too opportunistically; people who have randomly scattered themselves in the occupied territory in a now obviously failed effort to annex the holy land, or just to show that Jews can live everywhere in it.

The settlers, presumably, have settled under the nose of a forbearing, once vaguely sympathetic Israeli government, otherwise preoccupied by encirclement and terror. But they are people whom the Israeli government--if it ever had a real peace partner in the Palestinians, and not jihadist terrorists firing missiles, or sending in suicide bombers--would clear out in a great show of sovereign will. The recent clearing of the "House of Contention" by the Israeli Army is proof, so the argument goes, of the Israeli army's residual power. The more recent breakdown of the cease fire with Hamas is proof of how Israel faces an existential threat, and dares not be distracted by the settlers.

Netanyahu, who's picked up the scent of power, is defining a new centrism by triangulating these poles. He knows that Israelis have lost patience with Judeans, or at least the disquieting ones. He's made a show of purging one of the most fanatic of the settlers, Moshe Feiglin, from the 20th. position in the Likud list for the Knesset (though many more remain in the top 30); and he is simultaneously telling us that both the peace talks Olmert conducted with the Palestinian Authority, and the "time of retreat" in Gaza, are over. No two-state solution will compromise the existence of Kiryat Arba (no more than the unity of Jerusalem), he says. But neither settler zealots nor Palestinian terrorists, presumably, will be allowed to challenge the existence of the state. Each side--some now, some later--will be forced to change their behavior by Israeli state force.

I WENT TO Hebron a couple of weeks ago, as part of a delegation of Israelis hoping to show a measure of solidarity with an Arab family whose patriarch, Abed el-Hai, had been shot at point blank range defending his home from one Kiryat Arba settler as the House of Contention was being cleared. There is no need to sentimentalize this gruff, stolid man--whose many barefooted grandchildren, sticky from holiday candy and twittering over our cell phones, will be run over by global forces if peace should ever come. But let's just say that a day in Hebron focuses the mind.

You think out from Hebron, and the holes in the common wisdom become obvious, well, certainly less abstract. A different pattern takes shape, and virtually every premise of the common wisdom falls away.

1. Kiryat Arba, with surrounding settlements, is a solid town of about 10,000 people and growing. Many of its youth were born there, marinating in a peculiar and vicious righteousness. But there can be no Palestinian state if Kiryat Arba remains; to keep its residents under Israeli sovereignty, you would have to cut the southern West Bank in half, and keep checkpoints all along the route from Gush Etzion. Kiryat Arba's residents would never accept Palestinian citizenship, even if this were offered. Imagine offering Klansmen rule by Stokely Carmichael, or Martin Luther King, for that matter.

2. According to army intelligence, and demonstrated precedent, a substantial number of Kiryat Arba residents would be willing to violently resist the Israeli army. Reserve army units--young men from Herzliya or Netanya--will tell you the settlers are out of their minds. But this is not the only army. An increasing number of junior officers conducting the occupation come from the movements and homes of the settlers. The army is there, soldiers say, to keep the peace. But in any case, this means enforcing the status quo, in which settlements naturally expand.

3. There is nothing random about what the settlers are doing. In Hebron, the idea is to create a land bridge from Kiryat Arab to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. It is Abed el-Hai's bad luck that his home is in the way, in the wadi below Kiryat Arba, which the settlers want to turn "Jewish." Most nights, Kiryat Arba residents throw rocks, garbage, and bags of urine into his yard. In the area known as H-2, where the settlers have rights under the Wye Agreement (you know, the agreement then-prime minster Netanyahu negotiated in 1998), the Arab population has declined from about 35,000 to 18,000.

The road from Kiryat Arba to the Tomb has a yellow (that's right, yellow) line on it, indicating that no Arab is allowed to walk on it; the settlers push their baby-strollers freely, while army jeeps patrol up and down, and Arab kids watch from third floor windows, many of them with iron screens to protect them from rocks, etc.The settlers have set up a synagogue on the land of Ja'abri family--another family in the way--which the Israeli High Court has declared illegal, and the army has taken down over 30 times, only to have the "minyan" rebuild it. During prayers, their children often throw rocks, etc., onto the homes of the Ja'abris. A stone's throw in the other direction is the grave of, and monument to, Baruch Goldstein.

4. Multiply the Hebron problem by twenty, and you have the real, grotesque problem that occupation has engendered. Jerusalem is the radioactive core of it. Try to evacuate Kiryat Arba by force and tens of thousands will stream down from yeshivot in Jerusalem to stand with them.

5. No Israeli leader wants to deal with facing down the new Judeans--or can, without destroying Israeli social solidarity. I have written here before about how all fanatics live within concentric circles of support. No matter who wins a majority in the next election, about half of Israeli Knesset members will be from circles which the settlers count on--National Orthodox, Shas, Leiberman's Russians, Haredi--people concentrated in and around Jerusalem, whom the settlers will tell you would be in settlements themselves if they had the guts; people who will nevertheless apply the "values" the settlers stand for to Jerusalem.

Again, Netanyahu has demoted Feiglin. But the government he will form will rest on this Judean coalition. And if Livni-Barak win, they will face an opposition nearly the size of their own, with many sympathetic members, and a fear of resting their coalition (as they will have to) on the Arab parties.

6. Hamas is growing in power--in the West Bank, too--directly as a result of this grotesquery. It is absurd to think of Gaza as a separate matter. Nor will the Hamas leadership be intimidated by shows of force. Actually, they thrive on it--precisely because eruptions of violence allow them to be seen as the steadfast opposition to the inertial expansion of Israeli occupation. An Israeli attack on Gaza, which must be bloody, will be play right into Hamas's hands.

7. True, Israelis on the coastal plain are increasingly appalled by the settlers, and will tell you so. Livni's biggest applause line at the Globes business conference last week was her insistence that, under her leadership, peace talks with the Palestinians will continue. But taking on the settlers is another matter. It is more politic to talk about smashing Hamas, whose missile attacks on Shderot truly are insufferable.

8. Netanyahu speaks of "economic peace" as alternative to the peace process. This is also absurd. Palestinians cannot build businesses with 500 checkpoints across the West Bank. Those checkpoints are mainly to protect the settlers.

WHERE DOES THIS leave us? The simple fact is, this problem is too big for Israel. We will need the world's involvement; anyone who tells you something different is either covering for the settlers, or afraid for electoral reasons to appear squishy about Israeli autonomy, or arrogant, or ignorant, or thick, or all of these at once. This post is not the place to describe what involvement means, though the contours of a two-state deal have been obvious for many years. The point is, what Hebron represents cannot be solved by this deal in a few decisive months, like the evacuation of the Sinai was. New changes to the landscape will take years. Or the landscape will look like Bosnia.

Perhaps the saddest part of all of this is that first patriarch of Hebron, Abraham, never turned promised land holy. When faced with contention, as his herdsmen quarreled with Lot, he said something unforgettable but forgotten: "Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left."

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/22/hebron_agonistes_too_much_for/