Rattling the Cage: The fierce urgency of a settlement freeze

[Donald Ian Rankin]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184920314&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Most Israelis, I think, are not ready to accept the idea that the occupation will go on forever. They don't like the radical settler movement and its power. They know, even if they bury the knowledge, that lots of IDF soldiers have been doing terrible things to innocent Palestinians all these years. They know that our rule over the West Bank - as well as our remote control over Gaza - will always be a provocation to the Arabs and never be accepted by the West. They know, too, that whatever you call the system we're running in Judea and Samaria, you can't call it democracy.

So most Israelis, myself included, think of the occupation as provisional - here for now but not necessarily forever. Something whose status is undetermined, that can still be dismantled.

This belief is made out of about 2 percent rational analysis and 98% hope. For most of us, it is simply unthinkable that we will always be the overlords and the Palestinians our subjects. Unthinkable both morally and practically. If we try to imagine what Israel will be like in another two or three generations if we're still fighting to keep the settlers in their place and the Palestinians in theirs - that's not a country we want for our descendants. Maybe it is for the settlers and their supporters, but for the rest of us, the majority, if we become convinced that we'll never be free of this ball-and-chain called the occupation, that it's only going to get heavier, then we will lose hope. And people can't live without hope. So we cling to the belief that it's provisional, that it can be undone.

Rationally, I think there's a still a chance - a very slim one. But among people who think a lot about this subject, I'm one of the optimists; many others have concluded it's a done deal, that for several reasons, but above all the entrenched, forbidding presence of about 75,000 radical settlers in the heart of the West Bank, Israel and its army will be in there forever.

Either very slim or none at all - those do seem to be the chances for ending 42 years of occupation. But there comes a time when even willed optimism is impossible, when the best efforts of well-intentioned, hard-working people have been defeated once too often, when you can no longer say with a straight face that it's just provisional, when hope becomes a lie that you can't convince yourself to believe anymore.

TODAY, WE are just about there. If this latest attempt by Washington fails, it's finished; there's nothing left. If the Obama administration strikes out like every other US administration before, who will be left to say there's still a chance to change destiny? As settlements spread and Palestinians get more radical and Israelis get more right-wing, as an administration as liberal and popular even as Barack Obama's throws up its hands, who will still be able to say, seriously, that we shouldn't give up hope?

No, it's now or never - and that's the optimistic view.

Which means that for those who do not want the occupation to be our destiny, this is no time to quibble about natural growth or differentiating between this settlement and that. The US wants a total freeze on construction over the Green Line, even in post-1967 Jerusalem neighborhoods like East Talpiot and Gilo - and that's what Israel has to do.

This doesn't mean that mothers there have to stop having babies. At the absolute worst it may mean that a few young, growing families may have to move out of their homes because they need more space. This is no tragedy; young, growing families do it all the time, in Israel and everywhere else.

A total settlement freeze doesn't mean Israel is going to give up any of the Jerusalem neighborhoods or any of the large West Bank settlements just over the Green Line - we're not going to. There would be hundreds of thousands of people to relocate. The Palestinians accept this; that's why they've been negotiating land swaps with us ever since Camp David.

Obama's demand for a settlement freeze is the first test of his determination to do what's necessary to end this conflict; he will have many, many more if he gets past this one. If he means to succeed where his predecessors failed, he will have to go to extraordinary lengths - in my opinion, to be prepared to present Israel with the choice of keeping the settlements or keeping America's support. If he goes easy on the Netanyahu government, if he does no more than grumble over settlement growth like every president except George H.W. Bush did before, he will fail. And at that moment, finally, no honest person will still be able to say the occupation is provisional.

For those who dread such a moment, who find it unthinkable, now is not the time to worry about whether a family in French Hill should be allowed to add on a room or not. Rather, it's time to worry that the future of this country will go down the tubes very shortly if Obama loses the fight over the settlement freeze and Netanyahu wins.

This is no time, either, to be afraid of being called a traitor by a bunch of right-wing blowhards. To everyone who knows that the settlements are a disaster - morally, practically and every other way - you have a choice.

You can either stand up for this misbegotten Israeli government, or you can stand up for Israel. If there's any hope left - and there may not be - the one we've got riding on Obama is the last one. This is not just about the "fierce urgency of now" - this is do or die.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. Larry Derfner is one of the relatively few Israelis still interested in peace.

I think that if there is any moral hope for Israel, it lies with the likes of Derfner and Gideon Levi and Bradley Burston, who are now near-universally branded traitors by their people.

But, depressingly, even Derfner appears not to support ending the occupation of East Jerusalem, and without it, I don't think there is any chance of peace.

[aranthus]

2. In the JPost yet.

But have you read some of the comments? He's a sane man preaching in a wilderness.

[shaayecanaan]

3. Amazing how few Israelis seem to grasp the concept of enlightened self-interest

I have no idea whether this is for structural reasons (ie, a proportionally representative political system that results in fragile coalitions which are obsessed with the politics of the moment) or cultural reasons - (ie, very little of the experiences of the last 2000 years have equipped Jews with the sort of culture necessary to successfully govern other minorities).

For example, it strikes me as very odd just how many Jews seem to regard Hamas home-made artillery rockets as a serious menace, for instance. By way of comparison, try to imagine the British portraying the IRA's Stinger missiles as an existential threat to the United Kingdom, even though the IRA killed more Brits with Stingers than Hamas killed with Qassams.

The state of Israel may well fail at some time in the future. However if it does fail I cannot imagine something so paltry as home-made artillery rockets having anything to do with it. The consequences of declining productivity (more Arabs who cant work, more ultra-religious who dont work, and other young Jews spending three of their prime breeding/working years sitting at border posts in the territories), a likely decline in foreign largesse and possibly American aid as well, as well as demographic changes that will have a critical impact on the governability of the state are all far more likely to present a serious threat, I would imagine.

[henank]

4. You have so little idea

Your ignorance and arrogance are overwhelming. You obviously have zero experience of what it feels like to have "paltry home made missiles" falling on your head, or your children's head, or your house, or car or workplace or your kids' school or kindergarten, with 15 seconds warning, at any time of day or night. The IRA did not fire their stingers at English citizens. They were fired at British troops. There is a difference of light and day between the 2 situations. Troops are a) trained in warfare and b) have protective gear - armoured vehicles, bullet proof clothing and helmets. In any event, purely for curiosity's sake, I'd like to see the statistics of how many Brits were killed in what time span by IRA stingers.

Besides which, the aim of the IRA was never to destroy England - it was to drive British troops out of Northern Ireland. Hamas and its fellow travellers do wish indeed to destroy Israel.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Perhaps we should use some of our drones in Afghanistan over the settlements

and get those squatters to leave.

[LeftishBrit]

6. And probably kill a lot of Palestinians in the process?

That's a pretty neocon-ish idea when one thinks of it; the solution to every overseas problem is American military action?

[IndianaGreen]

7. When two children bicker over a toy, the parents will take that toy away.

I am of a mind to remove everyone out of present day Israel and Palestine (preferably relocating them to the US), then carpet bomb the land with 10-megaton nukes, thus making it uninhabitable for hundred of thousands of years. End of land disputes. End of wars. No more I/P conflict.

[LeftishBrit]

8. They don't usually pour petrol over the toy, set fire to it, and start a conflagration that burns

down the entire neighbourhood!

[IndianaGreen]

9. Those two children threaten the collective security of the world

If they can't make peace, the world must impose a peace.

The only ones with a legitimate claim to that land are the original Canaanites.

[shaayecanaan]

10. I'm Lebanese

so I have a pretty good idea of what it feels like to have a paltry home made missile fall on your house with 15 seconds warning, I imagine it is roughly 40-50% as frightening as having a real Syrian or Israeli rocket land on your house with no warning.

I'd like to see the statistics of how many Brits were killed in what time span by IRA stingers.

Actually, none, it seems. I checked and it seems that although the IRA acquired some surface to air missiles they did not use them. They did successfully bring down five helicopters and I assumed they had used Stingers; however they used Russian NSV guns to do this.

However, there were a number of mortar attacks on NI Protestant and English targets alike which killed at least 27 people (probably more, but those were the ones I found). On one occasion, a mortar shell landed close to the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. So I would say that the point I was trying to make still holds.

About 1000 British troops and police were killed during the Troubles, and about 1000 Protestant civilians killed.

BTW, I think you meant "civilians" not "citizens".

[LeftishBrit]

11. The IRA were at times a big threat to British civilians

Not just to the troops.

This certainly doesn't justify or excuse Hamas violence, but is nevertheless a fact.

[Ken Burch]

12. Actually, the IRA DID attack "English citizens"(the correct term would be "British citizens", fyi)

The IRA's "soft target campaign" attacked innocent Protestant. The Loyalist paramilitaries on the other side of the conflict did the same(such as the infamous "Bloody Sunday" attack on nonviolent Catholics and their supporters in Derry).

You can't ALWAYS paint the Palestinians as worse than everybody else in tactical terms.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Bloody Sunday was the military, not paramilitaries.

And I'm not sure "attack" is quite the right word - "killings" or "massacre" or something might be more accurate - it was a case of soldiers sent to disperse a protest march choosing to do it by shooting some of the protestors with live ammunition.

The soldiers claim that they had been fired upon first and that many of those killed were carrying guns; my understanding is that most impartial observers think that almost certainly this was not the case; that none of the 14 people killed was armed, and that the soldiers probably fired first, but that there was at least one IRA man on the march who fired at them.

The British government of the time held an investigation and, not unsurprisingly, held that the British Army had not done anything wrong; there is another, hopefully more impartial investigation due to report later this year.

[Ken Burch]

15. Ok, it was the Army in Bloody Sunday

That Army was supposed to just be there to keep the peace. It wasn't supposed to take sides. And of COURSE they were going to claim they were fired on.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

17. Depends what you mean by "supposed", I think.

Their stated objective was to keep the peace rather than to take sides, certainly.

Whether or not that was the objective of the British government in deploying them is another matter...

Incidentally, the soldiers not merely claimed that they were fired on (which at one point they were, although only *after* they had opened fire, I think), but made a whole range of fairly specific claims about how many of the dead had fired on them or been involved in violence, several of which were fairly compellingly proved to be outright falsehoods (one corpse had nailbombs planted on it after death; another man was photographed before and after death gunless, but the soldiers claimed he had been shooting when shot)

[IndianaGreen]

14. The term the poster should have used is British subjects

There is no such thing as a British citizen. Britons are British subjects to the Crown.

Right on target as always, KB.

[Ken Burch]

16. They did change it to citizens awhile back, Indiana.

The "subjects" thing ended in the Seventies, IIRC.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

18. Um... no.

I'm holding my passport as I type, and the phrase it uses is "British Citizen".

I don't know what the technical definition of a "subject to the crown" is, or even if it has one - I note that British citizens resident in other oountries are not subject to British rule, while foreigners here in the UK are.

[LeftishBrit]

20. I'm a British citizen, not a 'subject'!

You are right that the term 'British subjects' used to be the common one, but I haven't heard it in ages.

[Recursion]

22. I heard it yesterday on the BBC

[Recursion]

21. I think the official term is "subjects" NT

[shaayecanaan]

23. The only British subjects left are in the British overseas territories...

people in St Helena, the Falklands, etc etc. I think people in St Lucia are still subjects even though they are not entitled to citizenship.

The term "British subject" up until the 1980s referred to citizens of Canada, Australia, etc, who were still subjects of the Commonwealth and therefore could qualify for British citizenship readily enough. In Australia, that status was revoked by the passage of the Australia Acts in 1986.

[Recursion]

24. I am ignorant on this

I heard a representative of the Crown (or maybe of 10 Downing) kind of specifically using the term "subjects" in a BBC interview.

[Ken Burch]

19. Those missiles kept being fired even though the West Bank was still occupied.

And there were attacks from Gaza before the tiny number of settlers there were removed(a removal that Sharon made clear was intended to allow Israel to hold onto the West Bank forever).

This proves that the settlements endanger, rather than protect Israel.

This proves that the hard line endangers, rather than protects Israelis.

Please face reality.