Letter from Jerusalem

Though George Bush has been forced by a host of factors to abandon his ‘hands off ’policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this does not mean that the United States is even considering using its power and prestige to advance a solution to this ongoing crisis. Instead of serious engagement and the mobilization of its influence, the Bush administration has opted for a policy of ‘low intensity diplomacy’. The U.S. was obliged, in the face of wide international feeling that there is a chance for making progress towards a settlement, to show increased interest. However, the United States continues to avoid really necessary steps that would effect a real change. Low intensity diplomacy can be recognized by a flurry of important people traveling back and forth discussing everything and anything and deciding absolutely nothing about the real problems.

Sharon’s Gaza Disengagement Plan (GDP) was conceived in order to block genuine negotiations. It’s a classic ‘filler’ and designed to help the United States cover its ‘do nothing policy.’ We witnessed a new demonstration of this situation this week with the publication of the Sasson report. The report, ordered quite a while back by Sharon at the insistence of the U.S. government, could not come at a worse time for those who initiated it. In simple words, the report confirms that Israeli government and the IDF occupying army, employing almost every illegal subterfuge in the book, have been intensively engaged in massive and illegal settlement action. This involves the further wholesale theft of broad stretches of the remaining tiny and truncated sections of Palestinian territory – in addition to the considerable tracts of territory grabbed by the infamous security wall. The Israeli government, with the tacit connivance of the United States, has been liquidating and pulverizing the territorial foundations of the future Palestinian state, despite Bush’s ‘vision’ and new promises from Washington that the Palestinian state would be contiguous…

The devastating content of this official report ordered by the Israeli government would seem to require some sort of reaction from Washington, if only to prevent the low flame on the back burner from dying for lack of sufficient oxygen. However, Condi Rice and others speaking for Bush, declared that it is advisable to concentrate right now on the more ‘dramatic’ events linked to the Gaza Disengagement Plan. In this, our newfound ‘drama critic’ joins the ranks of those who hide between the ‘one thing at a time’, plea - when that one thing is helping them buy time. The Sasson report is worth a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the ongoing blatant acts of aggression against peace and the future of the Palestinian people. This is what is needed to impress all concerned with the urgency of the situation.

Those ‘in the know’ don’t really need a Security Council session to know that Abu Mazen and the renewed peace process are living on borrowed time. However, Bush and Sharon are not willing to proceed with the peace process until they are convinced that Abu Mazen has sold out and will sign on for the ‘temporary Palestinian state’ project.’ Most indicators, at this stage, are that though Abu Mazen is playing the U.S. game, he has not joined the U.S. team. As a matter of fact, there is every reason to continue to hold that neither Abu Mazen nor any other conceivable Palestinian leader could agree to a settlement less satisfactory to the Palestinians than the one agreed to – in broad lines – by Yasser Arafat.

Sharon and Bush are playing for time. But time gives the radical Islamisists political and strategic breathing space. Politically, this will enable them to convince their public that Bush and Sharon are leading the Palestinians up a blind alley. Strategically, this will enable them to renew resources and recruitment and also convince sections of the Fatah grass roots armies to join them. When violence returns to the scene, Sharon will ask how anyone can expect him to negotiate in such conditions and Bush will explain why Sharon is taking the only reasonable and consistent stand possible against terror. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of plain people in Gaza used the lull in the fighting to demonstrate for food and jobs.

Blair’s Descent into ‘Poodledom’

Tony Blair had spoken quite a bit about the need for something to be done about the “other” crisis in the Middle East, the festering crisis between Israel and the Palestinians. For some time, and especially during the run up to the attack on Iraq, it seemed that Blair was demanding real action on the subject. Blair had seized on this issue to ward off criticism to the effect that British foreign policy had forfeited any semblance of independence. Of course, the disastrous Iraq adventure demonstrated Blair was unable to resist even the most unreasonable and irresponsible actions taken by the United States on the tortuous road to disaster. However, Blair did still have the Israeli-Palestinian issue up his sleeve for proving that there was such a thing as a British policy in the Middle East. Every few months, Blair came out with a statement on the pressing need to do something to end the tension between Israel and the Palestinians, implying that he was pushing his U.S. partner to stop ignoring this issue. Somehow, Blair managed to convey the message that he was going to put an end to George Bush’s infatuation with Sharon and his policies. He talked about sponsoring a serious British diplomatic initiative on the Middle East, which might also contribute to the improvement of relations with Europe. Thus, it became known that Blair was sponsoring a major diplomatic initiative centered on a sweeping discussion of the Middle East issues among heads of states.

Sharon Cannot be Disturbed

It is an open secret that Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan is a transparent scheme to avoid serious negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sharon admitted the same publicly last May and his lawyer emissary, Dov Weissglass, has recently clearly articulated the same justification.

If Yasser Arafat’s death has created a window of opportunity, it is a window of opportunity for one of the most shameful actors on the international stage, Tony Blair, to prove that he does not have a shred of integrity. He proved this beyond any shadow of a doubt when during his visit this week to Jerusalem he granted full support and unconditional support to Sharon. Blair was grinning from ear to ear when Sharon told him that Israel is uninterested in his ‘meeting’. Blair hurried to tell him that he was right because the ‘meeting’ was really only an educational opportunity for the Palestinians.

Sharon has hung up a sign: “do not disturb - disengaging.” Accordingly, Bush and Blair have agreed to clam up until after Sharon pulls off the Gaza pullout. Thus, any genuine commitment by Israel to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, even in the future, was removed from the agenda. Sharon’s strategy in promoting his unilateral Gaza disengagement plan was to give his friends an excuse, even a poor one, for avoiding and postponing meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians. Bush bought into the maneuver and paid for it with Palestinian land (U.S. agreement to disregard the 1967 borders in a final settlement) and Palestinian refugee rights (U.S. holds that there will be no return to Israel).

The Palestinians, say Bush, Blair and Sharon, just do not understand that they are simply not ready for negotiations. Bush Blair and Sharon are going to give them enormous assistance in preparing themselves. First of all, the Palestinians will have to eliminate terror and institute democratic reforms. Since it was not enough that Sharon and Bush told them this, Tony Blair is going to meet with them in London to tell them this. Which all goes to prove that if you start as George Bush’s poodle, you will end up by also being Ariel Sharon’s poodle.

Just to set the record straight: It was the occupation that fed and fostered Palestinian armed resistance. It is a misfortune that in the main, this resistance was not mounted by Marxist-Leninists or liberal-humanists who understood that it was politically counter-productive and morally wrong to kill or maim innocent Israeli civilians. But this misfortune does not change the basic facts. There is no way to reduce or remove Palestinian armed resistance without proving to the Palestinian masses that there is a credible international initiative for a just peace backed by potential international sanctions against Israel. There will be no progress in pacification without real progress towards peace. There will be no real reform or authentic democracy without freedom and self-determination.

Pity Poor Peres

Sometimes it is not easy to achieve the lap dog role. Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan deception was designed inter alia to defuse and disarm any semblance of internal opposition from the majority of Israelis, who began to understand that it was becoming impossible to reach peace while holding on to territories and settlements. Sharon knows his ‘customers’ and it turned out that the Labor Party was his for next to nothing. A few jobs and honors and Labor joined his cabinet on the basis of the disengagement plan, without any other demands whatsoever regarding the overall program of the government. The only hitch so far is that there are legal and parliamentary problems in creating a honorary title for Peres as the ‘second deputy prime minister.’ The Likud had refused to surrender any of the important cabinet positions. Peres had the unenviable task of explaining the vital historical importance of his being appointed the second deputy prime minister. Labor and Peres crawled into Sharon’s cabinet, begging to be permitted to support Sharon’s plans, his time table, his interpretation of the implications of the disengagement plan..

Angry Settlers Prepare Putsch

The some 7,000 settlers in the Gaza strip do not want to be the pawns sacrificed in the Sharon gambit. However, Sharon is sophisticated enough to understand the need to buck and weave in order to defuse the accumulation of pressure against the occupation. This is the purpose of the d the disengagement scheme and Sharon’s final status proposal providing for the creation of three or four cantons which George W. Bush will recognize, conditionally as it were, as the Palestinian state.

The settlers are archetypal Zionists, who have recycled Zionist myths into a strange concoction of Jewish religious fundamentalism. God put them where they are and any attempt to move them is simply sacrilegious and defined as an act of brutal transfer (despite a generous resettlement premium of between $500-750,000 per family). Their militant wing pictured the late Yishak Rabin as a Gestapo officer for much less than the plan to resettle the Gaza strip settlers. The settler world-outlook defies any challenge to their absolute and unconditional right to settle the entire country from the sea to the Jordan. The frustration of their messianic impulses has the effect of turning them into dangerous madmen. If this sounds exaggerated, please bear with us.

The settlers association has endorsed the call of one of its leading figures, Pinchas Wallerstein, to break the law and go to prison in order to prevent the evacuation. Prominent leaders of the settler movement have spoken of a justified use of violence against the approaching forced evacuation. Hundreds of rabbis have signed declarations to the effect that the government decisions for evacuation are ‘null and void’. Activists among the settlers claim to have signed thousands of soldiers on a declaration that they would refuse to follow orders to participate in the evacuation of the strip. Settlers explain the virtues of rising up against unjust laws and cite the example of Martin Luther King (!!). The settlers inspired by a vision that led to the expropriation of millions of Palestinians from their homes and their homeland claim that the government would not even dare to consider the expulsion of Arabs. The high point of the frenzy was reached this week when settlers began wearing an orange (instead of yellow) star of David. The message is rather direct: we are being thrown out of our homes, just as the Nazis threw Jews out of their homes during the Holocaust. This level of incitement is occurring out in the open. You do not have to be a political scientist to imagine the mentality and the operational planning at the settler base, where almost everyone is armed to the teeth. Indeed, Israel will have to go through some form of civil war to decide whether the settlers continue to exert absolute veto power over Israeli politics. This civil war might take the form of a battle of nerves for a few hours, or even involve a clash for a number of days, or even for months. Though they are a small minority in Israel and relatively isolated from the Israeli public, the settlers exert a deep psychological and spiritual influence on significant sections of the Israeli establishment. They claim to be the vanguard and the faithful harbingers of the Zionist dream for a pure and purified Jewish state. This is, to our great sorrow, still a hope that springs eternal in many chauvinist hearts. The settlers hope that they will be able to force Sharon to back down, since after all is said and done, he is, in the last resort, one of them.

Comments on Dr. Uri Davis’ Article, “Naming the Colonizer in Geographical Palestine”

I have a tremendous amount of respect for the personal courage and the intellectual integrity of Dr. Uri Davis. If the reader suspects that this sincere comment is the preface for a severe critique of the contents of Davis’ current article, Naming the Colonizer in Geographical Palestine (NTCGP), which is to serve as the focus of our discussion next week, he or she will be absolutely right.

Davis certainly has the right to choose his own subject and to define the limits of the discussion that he prefers. Even so, this is no reason to be swept along with the rather arbitrary demand that he sets before us. Davis opens his paper by stating:

“Assuming the characterization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an inter-communal conflict, to be distinguished from an inter-state conflict, namely, a colonial conflict between the colonized native people and the colonial people originating from the Zionist immigration to Palestine..”

Now, any serious discussion of central problems connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can and should involve at the least a number of central assumptions regarding its characterization. Surely enough, an additional characterization of the conflict is that the conflict, in its present stage, is one between two national entities. An equally interesting characterization of the conflict holds that that the Jewish community in Israel is so atypical of conventional colonizer attributes, that it prevents categorization of the conflict as a conflict between colonized and colonizers. The Israeli Jews have no other homeland except for Israel. They are not envoys of a metropolitan center. Certainly these facts are sufficient to discard any facile attempt to compress them into the orthodox colonizer category. After all, when dealing with typical colonizers isn’t the main solution to make life miserable enough for them so that they bugger off and leave the indigenous population to work out its own national life. And if they do not understand that it is for the best that they go home, it is the job of the oppressed to make life difficult enough for them, so that they understand that this is the best step for all concerned. This is hardly a viable option in present circumstance,

Moreover, the social and class structure of Israeli society is basically different from that of almost all colonial formations. The colonized-colonizer schema also avoids dealing with the sensitive area of national self determination and the national passions of both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews. It is rather manifest that it is national self determination and the establishment of an independent state that interests the mass of both peoples. Even those who deny any legitimacy to the current state of Israeli may well find it necessary to discuss the problem of the self determination of the Israelis after they are stripped of their empire in the occupied Palestinian territories (an event to be anticipated with joy by any decent thinking and feeling person).

Instead of ‘assuming’ the characterization of the conflict in a way suggesting that its sole solution is the establishment of a single democratic secular state, as Davis suggests, we must of necessity to deal with two main constructs simultaneously: the two state solution because of the considerable political and diplomatic support the project enjoys and the one state alternative that looms on the horizon if the occupation and the Israeli expansionism close off the alternative for national self determination in part of Palestine.

Justice is an important factor in the evaluation of these alternatives, but it is certainly not the main or dominant consideration. It would seem to this writer that a major reduction in the suffering of the Palestinian people is the major consideration, though I certainly agree that the Palestinians have the moral right to hold out until they determine that they are being offered an alternative that meets their minimal requirements, as determined by them as an organized community.

The ‘justice’ factor which is often mobilized around this issue has very elastic qualities. The appearance of militant anarchists in our midst, many of whom have performed tremendous work against the Wall, suggest that in addition to the two-state and the one-state solution, we will have to discuss the no-state solution. Even if we come to believe that such a social form of organization, i.e., a society without any state power, would be qualitatively more just than any other solution, we will simply and gently discard it, as impracticable. Practicality is a factor in the discussion of even the most theoretical and ideological spheres of activity. As a matter of fact, any serious discussion of justice in a political framework, really refers to attainable justice.Playing by Davis’ Rules

From this point on we will stop being unruly and accept as graciously as possible Davis’s assumption that, on our way to the elimination of colonialism in Palestine, we have encountered a serious problem in the definition of the colonizers.

The path to the elimination of colonialism is presented as a rather simple affair. We will establish a constitutional system based on a number of clear principles. The state formation will be secular and based on a complete separation of religion and the state. The state will be democratic and outlaw any form of discrimination based on national, ethnic, religious or gender status. Citizenship is the core of the relationship between the individual and the state. All the citizens are equal, and this promises formal equality and this formal equality promises real equality, i.e., the negation of colonialism and colonialist domination.

As a matter of fact it is quite easy to recognize Davis’ utopia. It is the modern, Western European - United States liberal democratic republic.

Davis seems rather intent on suggesting this model to the Palestinians and the other Arab countries. He is quite certain that Western [bourgeois] democracy is the next step forward for all societies.

There are a number of serious problems with this model.

One of the more striking remarks by an important Indian post colonialist intellectual about the analysis of Indian society is that this subcontinent of one billion people is presented as something that is ‘not yet’ (Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe). The reference is of course to that extreme form of Euro-centrism which assumes, right from the start, that all societies are tending to develop in this, its own, direction and it is only a matter of time before they reach this point. Then assuming that this is ‘where we are going’ it remains for the ‘enlightened’ Euro-trained intellectuals to point out the right path. This is, of course, what I would call justified criticism of historicism. (Historical materialism would, I hope, refuse to anticipate any historical process without specific data and evidence.)

Now, the first and most striking characteristic of these free, democratic, republican and secular societies is that they enjoy a relatively high standard of living based on their historical role as colonizers. Inadvertently, we have found the really serious colonizers, the ’secular democrats’ who murder, rape, conquer, cheat and enslave whole continents. On the basis of this pillage and the wealth accrued by it, an organized deal is worked out with broad sections of the aristocrats of labor and a social contract is produced based on democracy, secularism, universal citizenship, one man one vote and all the rest.

We do have a problem. The historical foundations of liberal democracy are such that they block the path, historically and currently, to their repetition as the only sure path to the promised land. Davis has shown us the promised land, but it is not anywhere near.

Things are not going too well either in the metropolitan center. The existence of universal citizenship in modern society hints at the very devaluation of the actual role of citizenship in conditions of advanced capitalism. The real process is the concentration of sufficient power in the ruling class as to allow it to use, misuse and abuse democratic processes so as to empty them of their intended content and role.
[See in this respect “Democracy Against Capitalism,” Ellem Meiksins Wood, Chapter 7).

Davis’ liberal democracy will be truly liberal and truly democratic because it is an a-historical utopia. Only as such can it enable Davis to propose a new political and academic narrative to the Palestinians and other oppressed people.

Ironing Out A Wrinkle in Davis’ Utopia

The problem that concerns Davis in this paper is the fact that he feels that we must have, in order to promote a new narrative concerning the conflict and its solution, a better definition of the colonizers in Palestine. Davis, working on the new narrative seems to believe that, in accordance with current fashion, the main problem is lining up the signifier and the signified.

Our Palestinian friends must at some point learn that this problem has been debated by the Jewish entity in Palestine ad nausea. The consensus both on the left and the right seems to be that Israeli Jewish community, national grouping, entity, ethnic group or for short the ‘Israeli Jews’ is a perfectly adequate way to define this group which is problematic in almost every other sense than this simple statement of fact. The fact is the Jews are also defined in different and parallel circumstances as those who practice the Jewish religion creates absolutely no problem, because it is the secular connotations that are in effect regarding the major elements of the relationships between Jews and Arabs. It is also of little or no importance, for the purposes of this definition that the Israeli government employs racist policies – based on anti-Jewish legislation under fascism in order to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs in Israel, unless one wishes to argue, and Davis certainly does not claim this, that calling Israeli Jews, Israeli Jews is the root of Israeli racism.

Now comes the strange part. Davis thinks that it would be quite helpful if we convinced the Jews to stop considering themselves Jews and define themselves as Hebrews. Davis seems to think that building up narratives and formulating them for specific purposes is essentially a subjective project, and he is quite wrong about this, but this is not the main problem with this suggestion.

Been There Done That

A tiny ideological, intellectual and cultural movement in the Israeli Jewish community has been promoting the idea that the Jews in Israel are Hebrews for decades. Their argument is simple: the true nature of this people evolved in direct contact with the Land of Israel. But alas, their Hebrew essence distilled in direct contact with the soil of their homeland was disfigured and distorted over the long agony of the Diaspora. (See Ron Kuzar, Two Brief Introductions to Hebrew Canaanism, www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/kuzar_intros.html).

Now the Canaanite movement which advanced these ideas, never had any success against the Jewish-Zionist establishment because it tried to build a regional power base, based on the non-Arab peoples of the region, to restore the Hebrew empire.

Identifying the Jews who came to Israel in modern times with the ancient tribe of Hebrews is a Zionist ploy, par excellent of mythic proportions. Almost 50% of all the propaganda garbage about the renewal of the Jewish people in its ancient homeland is based on this myth. The Zionist and the Canaanites did meet one bit of common ground. The both declared in a style bordering on classic anti-Semitism that little or nothing of value emerged from the Jews in the Diaspora and their contribution to civilization depended first and foremost on the conquest and control of the Land of Israel – Palestine.

The current potential popularity of ‘Hebrew’ over ‘Jewish’ is that many Zionists consider the Hebrew designation as superior. However, the Jewish community already has a distorted sense of superiority. Why try and cultivate it?

The Political Significance of this Discussion at this Time

I felt it a point of honor to debate with Davis, as best I could, regarding the issues that he raised. However, I cannot leave this subject without expressing my deepest concern as to the real significance of this slogan advocating a ’secular democratic state’. Noam Chomsky had this to say in an interview held last spring:

Q. What do you think of a single-state solution, in the form of a democratic, secular state? Do you think such a solution is desirable today? Is it realistic today?

“There has never been a legitimate proposal for a democratic secular state from any significant Palestinian (or of course Israeli) group. One can debate, abstractly, whether it is “desirable.” But it is completely unrealistic. There is no meaningful international support for it, and within Israel, opposition to it is close to universal. It is understood that this would soon become a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority, and with no guarantee for either democracy or secularism (even if the minority status would be accepted, which it would not). Those who are now calling for a democratic secular state are, in my opinion, in effect providing weapons to the most extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US.”

[Interview with Noam Chomsky; Znet; March 30, 2004. Questions by Stephen R. Shalom and Justin Podur]