What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Apartheid?

from the Tabletmag.com
Kerry and others talk in terms of demographics, but it’s a question of rights

By James Kirchick|May 2, 2014 4:00 PM

Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks last week to the Trilateral Commission predicting Israel’s potential transformation into an “apartheid state” should it fail to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians raised howls of protest from American Jewish leaders.

In Kerry’s defense, a number of commentators have pointed to Israeli leaders who have argued the same point, including Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Indeed, many genuine friends of Israel—of which Kerry is undoubtedly one—have warned of the apartheid scenario, doing so often in service of specifically deflecting claims that Israel is already an apartheid state. Let the peace process fester, these pro-Israel voices warn, and that calumny could one day become true. But is this admonition accurate?

The apartheid regime in South Africa consisted of a white minority ruling over a non-white majority, and it is this feature that those who invoke the specter of apartheid over Israel cite as evidence for their claim. If Israelis and Palestinians do not reach a two-state solution, they warn, then a Jewish minority will eventually rule over a non-Jewish majority in the area spanning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Jeffrey Goldberg quoted his own 10-year-old New Yorker article on this point:

By 2020, the Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola has predicted, Jews will make up less than forty-seven per cent of the population. If a self-sustaining Palestinian state—one that is territorially contiguous within the West Bank—does not emerge, the Jews of Israel will be faced with two choices: a binational state with an Arab majority, which would be the end of the idea of Zionism, or an apartheid state, in which the Arab majority would be ruled by a Jewish minority.

The problem with the logic is that relative population size has nothing to do with whether or not a system can be described as “apartheid.”  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

The Danger of Denial for Israel

Editorial forward.com May 2, 2014 

NOTE: Interesting piece, and as always, interesing discussion in the comments section. 

We are not, of course, John Kerry. We have not, in the past nine months, met 34 times with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and reportedly twice that many times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, staking so much personal energy to achieve the two-state solution that these men say they want but are unwilling to grasp.

Since we are journalists and not diplomats, we won’t get into trouble for speaking the truth, which is that Israel does risk becoming an anti-democratic state where a minority rules the majority unless the occupation ends. We won’t utter the A-word — Israeli politicians are allowed to, but it’s unwise and inflammatory for anyone else, especially if you are secretary of state, even if you thought you were speaking in a private, off-the-record conversation.

We are, instead, Americans who care deeply about ensuring a secure, Jewish and democratic Israel, and about finding a way to satisfy the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinians. From this perspective, half a world away, it looks like Netanyahu and Abbas are in a dangerous state of denial.
Politics in America, in Washington especially, hardly provides a model for finding common ground, but it is far enough from Jerusalem and Ramallah to see what those leaders cannot or will not acknowledge. We may be wrong on this. We rather hope so. But the view from here is that the situation there is not likely to get better, or easier, or more advantageous to one side or another anytime soon.
Israel’s continued occupation of roughly 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank will corrode its soul and destroy its democracy, diminish its international standing and hasten the alienation that too many American Jews already feel. Palestinians’ continued refusal to accept the reality of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state will prevent them from establishing their own independent nation. Israel is in the neighborhood for good. Boundaries can be adjusted, compensation for lost property arranged, but the central fact of Israel’s existence is by now immovable. Get used to it.

That’s what it looks like from here, anyhow.

We recognize that, thanks to the separation barrier, a thriving economy and security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority (though who knows how long that will last), most Israelis outside the military don’t have to deal with Palestinians. Even those Jews living among them in the West Bank can travel on separate roads to gated communities. The occupation is largely invisible. It can be easily denied.
Denial is pervasive on the Palestinian side of the Green Line as well. Did Abbas really think he was helping his people by lobbing a grenade into Kerry’s gasping negotiations to try — again — to reach a rapprochement with Hamas? All he did was give Netanyahu the escape route he was waiting for and further postpone an end to his people’s suffering.

The refusal to come to grips with the dangerous, slow-burning reality in the Middle East reminds us of how Americans deny the stark effects of climate change and the human role in furthering environmental degradation. We shrug off dramatic shifts in temperature and the destruction caused by extreme storms, and lull ourselves into thinking that a hybrid car here, a bit of recycling there, is all we need.
The scientists who are trained to see and understand the larger landscape, however, are ringing alarm bells so loud that we have to be deaf to ignore them. In much the same way, John Kerry was calling upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to see past the denial of convenience and the denial of desperation to a path that could change history. We are not him, of course.

Which is why we can be grateful that he tried. LINK


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197478/the-danger-of-denial-for-israel/#ixzz30ftDzLFe

Politics trumps peace process

by Tony Badran in NOW at now.mmedia.me

In a move that surprised many in Washington, last Wednesday, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and its Islamist rival Hamas announced that they had reached an agreement to reconcile and end their seven-year rift. American commentators overwhelmingly approached the news from the angle of its impact on the already faltering US-sponsored peace talks. Unsurprisingly, Abbas's move drew furious reactions from American and Israeli officials. 

What possibly could Abbas be thinking? According to some analysts, the Palestinian leader's motivation was to put pressure on the US and Israel in order to extract concessions in the negotiations. However, the Americans and the Israelis were hardly the first thing on Abbas's mind. Instead, his eye was on something much closer to home, inside Fatah. Namely, Abbas is concerned with heading off the challenge from former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan. But since the Palestinian arena is subordinate to wider Arab politics, Abbas's maneuver also needs to be viewed against the backdrop of Arab dynamics and the efforts of Arab states to project power onto the Palestinian arena. The central Arab player in this sphere is Egypt, in alliance with Dahlan’s other patron, the United Arab Emirates, with Qatar the principal actor on the other side of the divide. Cairo, which has been squeezing Hamas, also seems unimpressed with Abbas and is looking for an alternative to the 79-year-old Palestinian president. 

Against this backdrop, the Palestinian players and their respective Arab backers have been maneuvering for months, leading to the current convergence between Abbas and Hamas. For their part, Egypt and the UAE want to reintroduce Dahlan into Gaza and back into Fatah, and they're helping him build up his ability to reconstitute his influence.    Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Not the Same Old, Same Old

NY Times Thomas Friedman April 15, 2014

At first, the article in The Jerusalem Post last week seemed like the same old, same old: A picture of a ransacked Israel Defense Forces post in the West Bank. Then a quote from Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon: “The State of Israel will not tolerate such criminal activity, which is terrorism in all respects.” Those Palestinians will never quit.

 Oh, wait a minute. Yaalon wasn’t talking about Palestinian terrorists. He was talking about Jewish terrorists, renegade settlers, who slashed the tires of an I.D.F. jeep parked in the settlement of Yitzhar, after Israeli soldiers came to demolish illegal buildings. “Settlers clashed with security forces during Monday night’s demolition and lightly injured six officers,” The Post reported. “A group of 50 to 60 settlers then raided an army post located to the west of the settlement, destroying generators, army equipment, heaters and diesel fuel tanks.” Israel’s justice minister, Tzipi Livni, warned that extremist settlers had crossed a line: “An ideology has flourished that does not recognize the rule of law, that does not recognize us or what we represent.”

These small stories tell a bigger one: We’re not dealing anymore with your grandfather’s Israel, and they’re not dealing anymore with your grandmother’s America either. Time matters, and the near half-century since the 1967 war has changed both of us in ways neither wants to acknowledge — but which the latest impasse in talks only underscores.   PLEASE KEEP READING

Greater Men have Tried

originally posted February 2, 2014 in the Times of Israel Blogs by Paula R. Stern

Open Letter to John Kerry:

Dear Secretary of State John Kerry:

Because of my respect for the United States, I will attempt to afford you the honor you think you so richly deserve. It’s hard to speak to you with anything but anger, hard to feel the need, again, to start from the beginning because you clearly choose to ignore history in your quest for glory. It is a quest destined to fail but its outcome, even, or more accurately especially, in failure, will hurt Israel.

Greater men than you have tried to make, to force, peace on the Middle East. I promise you, you will fail too. You will fail because you are not addressing the root cause of the problem. You, like so many before you, take the easy way out. Blame Israel. It is so easy to do, and so stupid.

I could speak to you of history – a history longer and greater than you can imagine. I could speak to you of injustices – yes, our land is filled with the graves of those murdered for the unjust reason that they lived here, or traveled abroad, or ate in the wrong restaurant, or took the wrong bus.  CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING

Read more: Greater Men have Tried | Paula R. Stern | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/greater-men-have-tried/#ixzz2ydddO0lo
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Israel ‘Deeply Disappointed’ by Kerry’s Remarks on Peace Talks

NY TIMES By ISABEL KERSHNERAPRIL 9, 2014

JERUSALEM — In an unusually pointed rebuke of its ally, Israel said on Wednesday that it was “deeply disappointed” by Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks a day earlier that appeared to lay primary blame on Israel for the crisis in the American-brokered Middle East peace talks.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute that has brought the talks to the brink of collapse appeared to be developing into an open row between Israel and the United States, even as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were said to be planning a third meeting here this week with American mediators to try to resolve the crisis.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Mr. Kerry said that both the Israeli and Palestinian sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, but that the precipitating event was Israel’s announcement of 700 new housing units for Jewish settlement in an area of Jerusalem across the 1967 lines, in territory the Palestinians claim for a future state.

“Poof, that was sort of the moment,” Mr. Kerry said. “We find ourselves where we are.”  CONTINUE READING HERE

Stand Firm, John Kerry

It’s time for the secretary of state to insist on America’s position on Middle East peace.

By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, FRANK CARLUCCI, LEE HAMILTON, CARLA A. HILLS, THOMAS PICKERING and HENRY SIEGMAN

 

April 08, 2014

NOTE: This is from POLITICO today. Look at the signers of this letter, then read it, then count to 10. I'm just posting it here because its news. But I am interested in your thoughts. That said, I expect the heat to go up with this piece... 

We commend Secretary of State John Kerry’s extraordinary efforts to renew Israeli-Palestinian talks and negotiations for a framework for a peace accord, and the strong support his initiative has received from President Barack Obama.

We believe these efforts, and the priority Kerry has assigned to them, have been fully justified. However, we also believe that the necessary confidentiality that Secretary Kerry imposed on the resumed negotiations should not preclude a far more forceful and public expression of certain fundamental U.S. positions:

YOU HAVE TO KEEP READING. CLICK HERE.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/stand-firm-john-kerry-105483.html#ixzz2yLPToNDL

Netanyahu blames Palestinians for collapsing peace talks

By William Booth, Sunday, April 6, 10:03 AM Washington Post

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke his silence on the collapsing peace talks Sunday by blaming Palestinian leaders for the current crisis and threatening retaliatory steps to punish the Palestinians.

In remarks at his weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that just as the parties were nearing an agreement last week to extend the U.S.-brokered negotiations through the end of 2014, the Palestinian leaders announced their decision to sign on to 15 treaties and conventions under the auspices of the United Nations. 

“The Palestinians’ threats to appeal to the U.N. will not affect us. The Palestinians have much to lose by this unilateral move,” Netanyahu said. “These will only push a peace agreement farther away, and unilateral steps on their part will be met with unilateral steps on our part.”

Israel’s retaliatory measures could include withholding transfers of millions of dollars in taxes and fees that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians say that it is Israel that has pushed the talks toward collapse.

To restart the peace process, Netanyahu promised in July to release 104 long-serving Palestinians prisoners, many convicted of murdering Israelis, and in return the Palestinians agreed not to seek greater recognition as a state from the United Nations.

The Israelis released three groups, a total of 78 prisoners, but balked last week at freeing the last batch of 26 inmates.  CLICK TO KEEP READING

Kerry-Abbas Visit Canceled as Mideast Talks Falter

NY Times April 1, 2014

NOTE: VERY sad. Once again. 


Tuesday night, after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority defied the United States and Israel by taking concrete steps to join 15 international agencies — a move to gain the benefits of statehood outside the negotiations process.

The move, which appeared to catch American and Israeli officials by surprise, prompted Secretary of State John Kerry to cancel a planned return to the region on Wednesday, in which he had expected to complete an agreement extending negotiations through 2015.

In that emerging deal, the United States would release an American convicted of spying for Israel more than 25 years ago, while Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and slow down construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. 

Mr. Abbas, who had vowed not to seek membership in international bodies until the April 29 expiration of the talks that Mr. Kerry started last summer, said he was taking this course because Israel had failed to release a fourth batch of long-serving Palestinian prisoners by the end of March, as promised.
Israeli officials say they are not bound by their pledge because no meaningful negotiations had taken place since November.

American officials, while rattled, said the Palestinians appeared to be using leverage against Israel rather than trying to scuttle the negotiations. Mr. Abbas, they noted, did not move toward joining the International Criminal Court, a step Israel fears most because the Palestinians could use the court to contest Israel’s presence in the West Bank.

Still, a senior American official said Mr. Kerry’s decision not to return to the region immediately reflected a growing impatience in the White House, which believes his mediating efforts have reached their limit and that the two sides need to work their way out of the current impasse.

In announcing the moves, Mr. Abbas said, “This is our right.” He has been under pressure from other Palestinian leaders and the public to leverage the nonmember observer-state status they won at the United Nations in 2012 to join a total of 63 international bodies. “We do not want to use this right against anybody or to confront anybody,” he said, as he signed the membership applications live on Palestinian television. “We don’t want to collide with the U.S. administration. We want a good relationship with Washington because it helped us and exerted huge efforts. But because we did not find ways for a solution, this becomes our right.” The United States voted against the Palestinians’ 2012 bid in the United Nations General Assembly, and it blocked a similar effort in 2011 at the Security Council, arguing that negotiations with Israel were the only path to peace and statehood.  CONTINUE READING HERE

The Hard Truth of Peace

Mar 27, 2014

By: Brett Krasner, Columbia University, Hasbara Fellow '14 from Hasbara Fellowships (hasbarafellowships.org)

NOTE: Another educated, thoughtful student. We're kvel'n! 

The peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are very close to failing. The nine-month talks, which are set to expire in April, have not yet created any major agreements between either of the sides. In order to extend negotiations, the Palestinian Authority (PA) demands that Israel freeze settlement building and release the final batch of prisoners (many of them convicted terrorists) that Israel initially agreed to release. The Israeli government is wary of releasing these prisoners if the talks are not guaranteed to be fruitful. What should be done? Israel should play along and release the prisoners and freeze settlement building outside of the major settlement blocks. In the worst-case scenario of the talks eventually breaking down, it would allow Israel to deflect accusations of intransigence onto the PA. In the best-case scenario, it could lead to a continuation of negotiations that have a chance of succeeding. The negotiations themselves matter because if they fail, Israel will be burdened with international isolation and delegitimization, economic boycotts, and destabilization in the West Bank.  Such a disaster is unneeded especially when Israel needs all the help that it can get with battling the Iranian nuclear program and other serious threats.

Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there are approximately twelve million residents. In this population, there are approximately 5.9 million Arabs and 6.1 million Jews. Of the Arabs residing in the area, 2.57 million live in the West Bank, 1.66 million live in Gaza, and 1.68 million live in the State of Israel.  CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING

Obama’s Middle East fallacy

By Jackson Diehl, Sunday, March 16, 7:52 PM E-mail the writer

Washington Post March 16, 2014 

Two weeks ago President Obama took time off from the crisis in Ukraine to pursue the foreign policy cause that, together with nuclear disarmament, has been closest to his heart: Israeli-Palestinian peace. Having invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Obama welcomed him by publicly declaring to Bloomberg View’s Jeffrey Goldberg that Israel “could face a bleak future — one of international isolation and demographic disaster — if [Netanyahu] refuses to endorse a U.S. drafted framework agreement for peace,” as Goldberg summed it up.

Fair enough, you might say: An April 29 deadline for obtaining agreement to the framework is getting close, so it’s time for a little presidential arm-twisting. It follows that when Mahmoud Abbas troops into the Oval Office for his meeting on Monday, he should be met with equally dire predictions of Palestinian doom if he fails to accept the framework. KEEP READING

NOTE: Do you agree? Too harsh? What really goes on in these meetings???

The U.S. has treated Russia like a loser since the end of the Cold War.

By Jack F. Matlock Jr., Published: March 14 E-mail the writer

Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991, is the author of “Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.”  

From the Washington Post

NOTE: This is a little off topic, although the flare up with Russia may have grave implications. I'm posting it mainly to point out that the "TRUTH" is very difficult to ferret out and its poor form to make rash conclusions...

One afternoon in September 1987, Secretary of State George Shultz settled in a chair across the table from Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in a New York conference room. Both were in the city for the United Nations General Assembly.

As he habitually did at the start of such meetings , Shultz handed Shevardnadze a list of reported human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. Shevardnadze’s predecessor, Andrei Gromyko, had always received such lists grudgingly and would lecture us for interfering in Soviet internal affairs.

This time, though, Shevardnadze looked Shultz in the eye and said through his interpreter: “George, I will check this out, and if your information is correct, I will do what I can to correct the problem. But I want you to know one thing: I am not doing this because you ask me to; I am doing it because it is what my country needs to do.”

Shultz replied: “Eduard, that’s the only reason either of us should do something. Let me assure you that I will never ask you to do something that I believe is not in your country’s interest.”

They stood and shook hands. As I watched the scene, with as much emotion as amazement, it dawned on me that the Cold War was over. The job of American ambassador in Moscow was going to be a lot easier for me than it had been for my predecessors. READ HERE

The BDS Threat - Roger Cohen NY TIMES - February 10, 2014

LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry caused outrage in Israel recently when he declared: “For Israel there’s an increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There is talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Today’s status quo absolutely, to a certainty, I promise you 100 percent, cannot be maintained. It’s not sustainable. It’s illusionary.”

Members of the Israeli government were indignant. Israel, they declared, will not negotiate under pressure. Advice givers, stay away! But Kerry was only repeating what Israel’s own finance minister, Yair Lapid, had already said: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.) movement is beginning to bite.

Keep Reading Here: