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| Mac Deford: Two Visions of Reality | | 11/19/2009 1:59:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | | How the Israeli Government Sees It | by Nadav Tamir, Consul General of Israel to New England
Last Friday The Free Press received a message from the Boston office of the Consulate General of Israel to New England which said that, having read Mac Deford's Nov. 12 column on the West Bank settlements, the Counsul General would like to write about Israel's desire to pursue a durable and sustainable peace with the Palestinians.
Thirty years ago Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed an historic peace treaty ending years of dispute between Egypt and Israel. It was a difficult sacrifice for Prime Minister Begin to uproot settlements in the Sinai Peninsula as part of the agreement, but peace with Egypt dwarfed any consideration of the horrors involved in removing Jewish families from their homes.
Twenty-six years later, in 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The thought being that although this would entail another painful settlement removal, it was Israel's best chance at advancing a two-state solution. Had he foreseen the ensuing Hamas coup that would lead to three years of rocket attacks on Israel's southern population, ultimately forcing last winter's military intervention, he might have reconsidered. Nonetheless, Israel once again proved its commitment to removing settlements for peace.
So it should come as no surprise that our government understands any future agreement with the Palestinians will require the removal of some settlements, even in the West Bank - the cradle of the Jewish people - just as we hope the Palestinian Authority understands they will have to sacrifice claims to sovereignty over locations dear to their history. But, what Israel won't do, and what any democratically elected government in a similar situation would refuse to do, is deny families, living legally on their land, the right to suitable housing before an agreement is reached on future borders.
It should be clear: Settlements have never been, nor will they ever be, an obstacle to peace when the conditions for peace are ripe. Nevertheless, it's unfortunate that they have become a precondition for potential negotiations, for they are only part of a future two-state solution framework. And it's even more unfortunate that there hasn't been more focus on the reasons for optimism. One of which being the acceptance of said framework by a majority of the decision makers on both sides, and another, of equal significance, being the move on the part of the Palestinians to focus on nation building from the ground up.
This move is not without historical precedence. Prior to Israel's inception in 1948, our leaders had the foresight to understand that upon obtaining sovereignty we would need government institutions in place and running to ensure internal stability and upward economic mobility. Now (as documented in the recent New York Times bestseller Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer), in spite of continuous national security threats on our borders, Israel leads the world in technology start-ups per capita, has more companies on the NASDAQ stock exchange than any country outside the U.S., and is one of the top international players in biotech and cleantech. There are many reasons for this, all of which are detailed in the Senor and Singer book, but none of it would have been possible without effective nation building.
Meanwhile, the positive results of the Palestinian efforts, spearheaded by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, are already being felt. The IMF predicts the West Bank economy will continue its steep climb at a clip of seven percent next year. A byproduct, not only of nation building, but of numerous Israeli checkpoint removals made possible by improving West Bank security forces under the leadership of U.S. General Keith Dayton.
Make no mistake: The Palestinians deserve a success story of their own, one they can lay claim to as part of a national identity as citizens of a state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel. Israel understands this. Just last Sunday Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated his call to restart negotiations, saying they should be part of "a good faith effort to reach a final peace agreement" and that we are "prepared to make generous concessions in exchange for a genuine peace that protects Israel's security." A two-state solution is in our future, but it won't come from putting preconditions on negotiations and preventing the process from happening before it even gets started.
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How Israeli Journalists See It
by Thomas McAdams Deford
"Auschwitz, lambs to the slaugher, Operation Cast Lead. To Israelis today, it's all of a piece, it's one story, one unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood."
- Op-ed piece, Jerusalem Post, October 29
Let's face it: neither the mainstream American press, including even "liberal" papers such as pre-eminently the New York Times, nor politicians, nor virtually anyone in a public position, judges Israel the way the Israelis honestly judge themselves. Excerpted below are six articles I took from the English edition of Ha'aretz. Granted, Ha'aretz is the most liberal of the Israeli papers, but it also has a reputation as its most influential one. The articles were essentially picked at random, as they all appeared on the only day, Sunday, November 8, I read Ha'aretz during 12 days in Israel.
The seventh article - perhaps the one that would be the most controversial of all were it printed in a major US publication - is from the Jerusalem Post of October 29th, a conservative, right-wing English-language paper. (The following day, for example, the lead op-ed piece, taking up three-quarters of the editorial page, was titled "Goldstone Report - the Terrorists' Magna Carta.")
Adjacent to these Israeli newspaper clippings is a short piece by Israel's Consul General in Boston, in reaction to my two recent columns. His article is basic boilerplate defending the status quo of the last 40 years which Israel, with its overwhelming military force, has been able to impose on the Palestinians. After all, he's an employee of the Israeli government, so what he writes is a direct reflection of what the Netanyahu government would like the world to believe. The journalists, by contrast, are writing passionately about the realities on the ground. Taken together - what I would term the facts that are shouting out to be dealt with versus the official diplo-speak, whose purpose is to rationalize the ongoing occupation and continued settlement growth while giving bland assurances about Israel's desire for a two-state solution - they give little cause for hope. Just yesterday, for example, the New York Times headlined another article on still more Israeli settlements "Plan to Expand Jerusalem Settlement Angers US." Of course, other than expressing "dismay," there was no indication of any action the US intends to take.
But let the Israelis speak for themselves. Read the Consul General first: get the Alice-in-Wonderland view of how peace lies, in our grasp, just over the horizon; and then let the journalists tell you what's really going on.
On Israeli discrimination: A half-page article outlined the findings of the US State Department's recent report on religious freedom worldwide. Ha'aretz reported: "Tolerance towards minorities, egalitarian treatment of members of all ethnic groups, openness towards various streams in society, respect for sites holy to the other - these are all clear tests of a tolerant and pluralistic society. The new report ... gives Israel a failing grade on all of these practices." In a highlighted box highlighting the conclusions, the writer editorializes that, with regard to religious freedom, "Israel is closer to the fundamentalist Islamic states than to the Western democratic world."
November 7th was the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. A front-page op-ed piece began, "The masses returned to the square yesterday, even if in slightly smaller numbers. And yet the square was empty and hollow. [14 years ago] a whole generation demanded peace - as the political slogan goes - but instead made two unnecessary wars. . . .
"Everyone spoke about peace, but no one so much as hinted at the freeze on construction in settlements. Everyone called on Palestinian Authority President Abbas and Syrian president Assad to make peace, but no one mentioned our own made-in-Israel peace rejectionist, Prime Minister Netanyahu."
Two columnists discussed the settlers. The first is currently a regular columnist for the paper; in the mid-'80s he had been their Washington correspondent and subsequently the managing editor. "The settlers have turned the state of Israel into their satellite. Their power is so great that even a superpower like the United States folds in the face of their obstinacy. What do they care about peace with the Palestinians or Syria, the Arab peace initiative or the Iranian nuclear threat? A house in Ofra, a neighborhood in Efrat, a trailer home in Givat Rahel are far more important to them than the fate of the Israeli bubble, which in its stupidity knows not where its "peace process' is truly leading." And it concludes: "If there is a strategic threat to Israel's continued survival, it sits on the hills of Hebron and Samaria. If there is one force that can bring down the continuation of the peace process, it is continued building in the settlements."
The other settler piece was by a well-known Israeli leftist poet and author: "Netanyahu is no genius. He is simply not interested in saying good-bye to the occupation. That is all. After all, he came to power because of this. To complain about him is to complain about November rain. The Israel public's choice is a different matter. The spokesmen of the dovish camp tell us horror stories about a future binational state.... But the binational state is already here. It has a rigid apartheid legal system, as the High Court of Justice fades away. The system preserving this apartheid is more ruthless than that seen in South Africa, where the blacks were a labor force and could therefore also make a living."
On an article, by a former Labor Party cabinet minister, about Palestinian president Abbas's announcement he intends not to run for re-election: "The conduct of Abbas, the most courageous partner we have had, is in large part a by-product of our missed opportunities. It is a result of an arrogance and lack of interest in what is happening within the Palestinian Authority, just five kilometers from the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. Abbas's withdrawal from his leadership role in contacts with Israel is good news for anyone who fears a solution to the conflict or anyone not willing to pay the price. For everyone who understands the world in which we live, and who fears for the fate of the Jewish state, this is a wake-up call."
Finally, to round out Ha'aretz's weekend op-ed coverage, a critique of Netanyahu: "The entire world is against us," it begins, mocking a recent speech of Netanyahu's in reaction to the Goldstone report. "Yes, this is true. Yet there is no respectable entity the world over which casts doubt on Israel's right to exist, in contrast with the line that is parroted here. Iran strives to attain nuclear capability. Yes, that is true. But Iran is not about to drop a bomb on Israel, in contrast to the scare-mongering directed at us. There was a Holocaust. Yes, that is true. Yet there is no second Holocaust waiting suddenly to befall us."
Later: "Rather than talk to us about anti-Semitism, hatred of Israel and the imaginary threat to its existence, [Netanyahu] could have taken confidence-building steps that would alter the picture. He could have established a committee of enquiry to probe Operation Cast Lead [in Gaza], offered bold initiatives to promote human rights in the territiories while pledging to completely freeze settlement construction without any bargaining involved. It is all in our hands. Instead, the prime minister brandishes the blueprints for Auschwitz. And, really," it concludes bitterly, "what is the harm in frightening us a bit with the specter of another holocaust?"
And speaking of the Holocaust, the column in the conservative Jerusalem Post, entitled "Some Victims We Are," would never see the light of day in even the most liberal of mainstream US media: "The kill ratio [in Gaza] was 100 to 1 in our favor. The destruction ratio was much, much greater. To this day, thousands of Gazans are living in tents because we won't let them import cement to rebuild the homes we destroyed. We turned the Gaza Strip into a disaster area, a humanitarian case, and we're keeping it that way with our blockade. . . .
"We initiated the war in Gaza, we waged one of the most one-sided military campaigns anyone's ever seen - and we're the victims. Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter, Operation Cast Lead. To Israelis today, it's all of a piece, it's one story, one unbroken legacy of righteous victimhood. . . .
"Auschwitz, lambs to the slaughter. Remember us, the people of the Holocaust? That wasn't the Middle East's superpower you saw fighting in Gaza. That was the 6 million. So you can't blame us. We're immune from your criticism. We're the biggest victims the world has ever known. We're desperate, so don't tell us about kill ratios and disproportionate use of force and collective punishment. We're fighting for our survival.
"This is what we tell ourselves and the world, and, in the face of what we did and are still doing in Gaza, it has become intolerable. We are not the 6 million. The 6 million were powerless Jews three generations ago; we cannot wrap our abuses in their tragedy. Instead, let's take a good, hard look at what we did and what we're doing in Gaza. Then let's take a good, hard look in the mirror. And then let's admit who's the true victim here and now, and, more importantly, who isn't."
This is part 3 of a 4-part series in which Mac Deford reports on his most recent travels in the Middle East, mostly in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
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