Wednesday, September 27, 2023
From Ian:
Benny Morris: Avi Shlaim’s Fantasy Land
Benny Morris: Avi Shlaim’s Fantasy Land
It all sounds pretty convincing (if repetitive), but this historical documentation is inconclusive at best. One apparent error in Shlaim’s narrative stands out. In trying to pin Israel’s colors to the bombings, he writes that Binnet in 1954 was “in charge” of a subsequent (proven) Israeli sabotage operation using a cell of local Egyptian Jews, in which U.S. cultural centers and other targets in Cairo and Alexandria were bombed with the purpose of causing bad blood between Egypt and the West (the episode known in Israel as essek habish—the unfortunate business). The cell was caught and its members were jailed or executed. Binnet was also picked up and committed suicide. The problem with Shlaim’s account is that Binnet was apparently not involved in the sabotage operation in Egypt. He was an independent spy. The bombing was organized and run by someone else but Binnet was picked up incidentally due to a compartmentalization failure.Karys Rhea: Will Israel's Right-Wing Government Address the Existential Threat of Illegal Palestinian Settlements?
“Having lived as a young child in an Arab country, I was aware of the possibility of peaceful Arab-Jewish coexistence … My Iraqi background thus helped me, as I grew up, to develop a more nuanced view, based on empathy for all parties locked into this tragic conflict,” writes Shlaim. Unfortunately, he continues, the idea of a two-state peace settlement, based on partitioning Palestine, is dead. Shlaim attributes this death solely to Israel and Israeli policies, particularly the settlement enterprise, which, over the past 50 years, has planted more than half a million Jews, some of them messianic fanatics, in the midst of the 3 million-strong Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank. Israel has, and will likely have in the future, neither the will nor the power to uproot the settlers.
I agree with Shlaim that the two-state solution model is dead. What he fails to mention is the initial and even more compelling cause of the death of the two-state solution: Palestinian Arab rejectionism. The Palestinians have displayed remarkable consistency in rejecting the two-state solution: They said “no” to the Peel Commission partition proposal in 1937 (which awarded the Arabs 70% of Palestine) when Haj Amin al-Husseini ruled the roost; they said “no” to the U.N. General Assembly’s partition resolution of November 1947 (which proposed Palestinian statehood on 45% of the land); PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said “no” to the partition proposals of the year 2000 (the “Clinton Parameters”) that awarded the Palestinians a state on 21%-22% of Palestine; and current Palestinian Authority “President” Mahmoud Abbas failed to respond (i.e., said “no”) to Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert’s partition proposals, which were akin to Clinton’s, in 2007-08.
The fundamentalist wing of the Palestinian national movement, Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in 2006 and is still the most popular Palestinian party, rejects out of hand any talk of partition. It aims, so says its charter, clearly, to eradicate Israel and replace it with a Sharia-ruled state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. And while the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah party, occasionally pays lip service to the two-state idea, it, too, covets all of Palestine (why else insist on the refugees’ “right of return,” which, if realized, would create an Arab majority?). Partition is not on the Palestinian agenda today, if it ever really was.
So what does Shlaim propose? A one-state solution—a democratic binational state, ruled jointly by Palestine’s Arabs and Jews. The problem is that neither Palestine’s Arabs nor its Jews support this unworkable idea, especially given the 120-year history of war, terrorism, and repression. For a model of this kind of solution, Israelis, Palestinians, and helpful foreign interlocutors need look no further than the internally fractured Lebanese state on Israel’s northern border, which is dominated by Hezbollah. There is too much blood, and bad blood, between the two peoples, not to mention abysmal religious, cultural, and social differences—and yes, racism, on both sides—to produce a version of Belgium on the Mediterranean.
Shlaim’s idyllic vision, based on the social and economic mingling of upper crust Arabs and Jews in Baghdad during a brief period of time in the 1930s, is not a precedent or pointer to anything. My prediction? Were a one-state solution ever tried, it would collapse in anarchy and drown in rivers of blood, compared to which today’s violence is a mere trickle.
Three Worlds is very readable, like everything that Shlaim writes. A good editor would have deleted its innumerable repetitions—and he or she may also have caught some of its outlandish factual errors: “seven Arab armies invaded” Palestine in 1948 (in fact, it was four); “at the end of 1948” Israel’s population was “650,000 of whom 150,000 were Arabs,” (in fact, there were 700,000 Jews and somewhat more than 100,000 Arabs), to give just a few examples.
Early on in Three Worlds, Shlaim recalls that his “elders’” viewed Israel, before the family left Iraq, as “a small, faraway country of which we knew little.” The words echo the appeaser Neville Chamberlain’s dismissive designation during the 1938 Munich crisis of Czechoslovakia, which he was about to sell down the river, as “a far-away country … [inhabited by] people of whom we know nothing.” Is it possible that subconsciously Shlaim is here signaling his desire, or what he assumes is or will be the West’s desire, to sell Israel down the river?
This is Part 9 of a 10-part series exposing the underreported joint European and Palestinian program to bypass international law and establish a de facto Palestinian state on Israeli land.The essence of the Palestinian heritage
There has thus far been little political will in Israel to counter illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of the West Bank.
For the same reasons it allows illegal weapons to proliferate throughout Arab Israeli communities and Bedouins to establish encampments in the Negev, Israel’s government does not give definitive enforceable orders to its Civil Administration (COGAT) — it wants to avoid negative press or a more violent confrontation with the Palestinians in the future.
Israeli officials thus approach the problem with local Band-Aid solutions rather than a full-frontal assault.
“They are not treating this as a war, and it is a war. It’s actually more dangerous than other wars,” says Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, founder of the Israeli organization HaBirthonistim. “At the moment, the Palestinians are winning this war. In 20 or 30 years, this will be an existential threat. We need to wake up.”
Dr. Yishai Spivak, an investigative researcher with the Israeli nonprofit Ad Kan, concurs, adding that there are two kinds of wars that Israel is fighting with the Palestinians.
One is the terror war, in which Palestinians use physical violence to harm citizens of the state of Israel. The other is the non-violent or civilian war, in which Palestinians attempt to delegitimize Israel via various channels, such as the United Nations, social media or the global BDS movement.
Another reason Israeli leadership fails to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves is that its ministers are generally in power for a short time and may be dismissed within their party in short order. For the one to two years they generally serve, they are primarily concerned with building their reputation, desperate to be internationally accepted.
Put simply, the political system bolsters the bureaucrats. And they know that to tackle a problem of this nature and magnitude, they would have to take extreme actions against the European Union, Palestinian Authority and COGAT.
With the painful, precarious status Israel has on the geopolitical landscape, it is unlikely that any foreseeable coalition will set the precedent and shift the paradigm.
Even Jewish settler leaders have failed to respond to this as an existential threat. In Efrat, for example, when Israelis complain to their mayor about the illegal Arab structures popping up around their neighborhoods, the most he will do, if anything, is make a phone call to COGAT, and then quickly forget about the matter.
In order to set the record straight and enable the president of the Palestinian Authority to deal with the" glorious" heritage of his invented people, UNESCO members must be presented with the sites where representatives of the "Palestinians" imprinted their heritage.
A rich bloody heritage in which those Arabs, who call themselves "Palestinians" in recent generations, are proud and boasting, above every platform, in every textbook and "consciousness engineering device".
Among the sites worth noting is a section of the Israeli national water carrier project that was blown up as part of Fatah's first terrorist attack on January 1st 1965 (before the six day war and the liberation or "occupation" of the Judea, Samaria, the Jordan valley and east Jerusalem- all known as the "West Bank"); Suicidal terror attacks in Moment Cafe and Sbarro Restaurant in Jerusalem, Matza Restaurant in Haifa; Horrific massacres at Ma'alot School in the Galilei, Park Hotel in Netanya during Passover eve, Dolphinarium night club and Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv, Beit Lid bus stations and other sites saturated with Israeli blood. This is the heritage of the Arabs, who in recent generations have called themselves Palestinians, between whom and historical heritage sites there is a deep chasm greater than the Syrian-African rift, in which ancient Jericho is located.
After various Attempts made by Israeli elements to prevent UNESCOs political declaration, which were unsuccessful despite sincere efforts made on the part of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Heritage and others, Israel and its allies are required to approach UNESCO with a query and criticism on its side, regarding the manner in which the puzzling decision was made. How did the organization's decision contribute to the promotion of peace, security, cooperation and other slogans as stated in its stated goal: "To contribute to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture, with the aim of instilling throughout the world a sense of respect for the values of justice, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms declared in the UN Declaration?"
The State of Israel is also required to make a decision preserving its own heritage sites that have not yet been officially declared as such, with all that this entails, such as the Altar of Joshua on Mount Ebel. In the absence of such a decision now, after UNESCO granted legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority, there is a danger of destruction on the sites, or the danger of expropriation and appropriation of the invented" Palestinian heritage,"as was done at Tel Aroma in Samaria, (a Hasmonaean era fortress) where the Palestinian flag proudly flies.
An Israeli Zionist government should act like one by applying the Israeli sovereignty according to its historic right, on every important heritage site within the boundaries of the Promised Land. Regardless to what any invented entity thinks, whether they are the Narnians from Narnia, Ozon's from the Land of Oz or "Palestinians".
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