The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners (Mearsheimer)

[shira]

It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out to hear me speak this afternoon.

My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called "Green Line" Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza. In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there. I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.

The story I will tell is straightforward. Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans -- to include many American Jews -- Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a "Greater Israel," which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream.

more...
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mearsheimer300410.html

[shira]

1. The jewciest excerpt from a VERY LONG article...

American Jews who care deeply about Israel can be divided into three broad categories. The first two are what I call “righteous Jews” and the “new Afrikaners,” which are clearly definable groups that think about Israel and where it is headed in fundamentally different ways. The third and largest group is comprised of those Jews who care a lot about Israel, but do not have clear-cut views on how to think about Greater Israel and apartheid. Let us call this group the “great ambivalent middle.”

Righteous Jews have a powerful attachment to core liberal values. They believe that individual rights matter greatly and that they are universal, which means they apply equally to Jews and Palestinians. They could never support an apartheid Israel. They also understand that the Palestinians paid an enormous price to make it possible to create Israel in 1948. Moreover, they recognize the pain and suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Finally, most righteous Jews believe that the Palestinians deserve a viable state of their own, just as the Jews deserve their own state. In essence, they believe that self-determination applies to Palestinians as well as Jews, and that the two-state solution is the best way to achieve that end. Some righteous Jews, however, favor a democratic bi-national state over the two-state solution.

To give you a better sense of what I mean when I use the term righteous Jews, let me give you some names of people and organizations that I would put in this category. The list would include Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame, just to name a few. I would also include many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone. Furthermore, I would apply the label to the many American Jews who work for different human rights organizations, such as Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

On the other side we have the new Afrikaners, who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state. These are individuals who will back Israel no matter what it does, because they have blind loyalty to the Jewish state. This is not to say that the new Afrikaners think that apartheid is an attractive or desirable political system, because I am sure that many of them do not. Surely some of them favor a two-state solution and some of them probably have a serious commitment to liberal values. The key point, however, is that they have an even deeper commitment to supporting Israel unreservedly. The new Afrikaners will of course try to come up with clever arguments to convince themselves and others that Israel is really not an apartheid state, and that those who say it is are anti-Semites. We are all familiar with this strategy.

I would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby’s major organizations as new Afrikaners. That list would include Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, just to name some of the more prominent ones. I would also include businessmen like Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman as well as media personalities like Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. It would be easy to add more names to this list.

:popcorn:

[Madam Mossfern]

2. I guess this is an article meant to provoke

When one uses hyperbole to make their point, they are not interested in dialogue.
True, I didn't read the entire article, I will go back and read.

Unfortunately many Jew haters will use this article to demonstrate just how evil Jews are.
BTW, I am very liberal and fall more toward the "righteous" category. As you know this is a quite
complex issue.

[shaayecanaan]

4. Hyperbole?

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is now Israel's defense minister, said in early February of this year that "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

What Mearsheimer is saying is pretty much what Israel's Defence Minister is saying. Either the two-state solution must succeed *OR* Israel faces the choice of becoming either non-Jewish (a binational state) or non-democratic (an apartheid state).

I am not sure whether you can characterise that statement as hyperbole. Indeed, it seems as cut and dried as one can get.

"As you know this is a quite complex issue."

Actually, its fairly simple. Let me boil it down for you again:-

"As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

[Mosby]

5. the big difference though

Is that mearsheimer thinks a two state solution is an impossible fantasy while barak thinks it's quite possible and works towards that end. Mearshimer is basically promoting a one state solution in this piece - most of his "good" jews on his list are one state nutters.

[shaayecanaan]

8. Rubbish

Most of the "righteous Jews" (not quite as silly a concept as "righteous Gentiles", may I submit) are on the record as having supported a two-state solution for decades.

Most of the "new Afrikaners" either don't support a 2-state solution, or didn't until it became politically unfashionable to not do so, and even then only grudgingly.

[shira]

6. The article is complete trash

A solution Mearsheimer didn't think of is that Israel can unilaterally withdraw from almost all the territory and let the W.Bank become another Gaza.

One reason the article is crap - apart from the blatant antisemitism categorizing "acceptable" Jews from the rest - is that it takes all responsibility out of the hands of Palestinians, as though they're children who can't do anything but wait for apartheid. Of course, there's no mention of Hamas in the article either - as if Hamas plays no role in anything. And Olmert's 2008 offer, which comes closest to the Geneva Initiative that Chomsky endorses, doesn't rate any mention.

In short, the article is garbage.

His "acceptable" Jews are mostly one-state nutters whose 'solution' to the conflict would only result in a lot more bloodshed.

David Duke's wet dream.

It's a shame what Jew-on-the-brain can do to an intelligent "realist" like Mearsheimer.

[shaayecanaan]

7. Rather like your posts...

"A solution Mearsheimer didn't think of is that Israel can unilaterally withdraw from almost all the territory and let the W.Bank become another Gaza."

To do that they would have to give up on at least some of the settlements. At they very least Ariel would have to go as it is situated smack-bang in the middle of the West Bank. Mearsheimer makes the point that there is very little political will for this in Israel. He is correct in that regard. Netanyahu finds it a struggle simply to restrain the growth of the settlements. Removing them would be a political impossibility.

It takes all responsibility out of the hands of Palestinians, as though they're children who can't do anything but wait for apartheid.

Actually, thats quite untrue. Mearsheimer goes on to say:-

Second, to win this war the Palestinians will have to adopt the South Africa strategy, which is to say that they will have to get world opinion on their side and use it to put enormous pressure on Israel to abandon apartheid and adopt democracy. This task will not be easy because the new Afrikaners will re-double their efforts to defend Israel's heinous policies. Fortunately, their ability to do this is likely to diminish over time.

Third, the Palestinians' most formidable weapon in this war of ideas will be the Internet, which will make it easy for them to document what Israel is doing and to get their message out to the wider world.

Fourth, the Palestinians will need to build a stable of articulate spokespersons who can connect with Western audiences and make a compelling case against apartheid. In other words, they will need more Mustafa Barghoutis. The Palestinians will also need allies, and not only from the Arab and Islamic world, but from countries in the West as well. Many of the Palestinians' best allies will surely be righteous Jews, who will play a key role in the fight against apartheid in Israel as they did in South Africa.

So actually he enumerates a number of things that the Palestinians can and should do. He also states that the Palestinians should categorically reject violence, which I agree is certainly prudent.

Of course, there's no mention of Hamas in the article either...

Yes, and there's no mention of the holocaust either. Should he have inserted a throwaway reference just to please you?

[shira]

9. You might appreciate Hussein Ibish's drubbing of the article

http://www.ibishblog.com/blog/hibish/2010/04/30/mearsheimers_unhelpful_unrealistic_and_disempowering_message_palestinains

Mearsheimer's unhelpful, unrealistic and disempowering message to the Palestinians
April 30, 2010 - 1:07pm

For the past couple of years Professor John J. Mearsheimer has spoken at many Arab and Muslim American events, and in most of them he sensibly urged Arab and Muslim Americans to seek a working coalition with Jewish Americans in favor of a two-state solution. In fact, he has been a strong advocate of a two-state solution. Until yesterday, that is. Speaking at the Palestine Center in Washington, Mearsheimer suddenly reversed himself with astounding claims of prescience bordering on clairvoyance. He flatly declared:

"Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a 'Greater Israel,' which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens."

As Emperor Joseph II in Peter Shaffer's delightful fantasy "Amadeus" would have put it, "Well. There it is."

Unfortunately, his subsequent elucidation yielded little more than an elaboration on this truly impressive parade of certainties, without any particularly illuminating additional insights or assertions.

Mearsheimer lists a limited set of four possible scenarios for the future:
1) A two state solution, which he affirms is the best option for both sides but dismisses on the grounds that the Israeli public will never accept it and no Israeli government can agree to it. Moreover, the Israel lobby will prevent any American president from exercising sufficient pressure to force it from the outside. Furthermore, the Palestinians are badly divided.
2) Israeli ethnic cleansing on a greater scale than in 1948 and 1967, but which he thinks is extremely unlikely except under conditions of extreme Palestinian violence. Even then, he is skeptical that Israel would take such steps.
3) The emergence of a fully-fledged apartheid system in a greater Israeli state, complete with a Palestinian semi-autonomous but not independent bantustan, which he thinks is the only possible short and medium-term outcome. However, this openly apartheid system will fail because the world will recoil at such discrimination. Since it would be antithetical to Western values it will alienate the West, and it will make Israel a strategic liability for the United States. Moreover Israel will lose the support of most Jewish Americans, who cannot and will not support an openly apartheid state, and will be alienated by the growing religious orthodoxy of the Jewish Israeli population.
4) A democratic one-state solution, dominated by a Palestinian majority, is therefore the inevitable long-term outcome, because the inevitable mid-term apartheid system will prove unsustainable.
That's a lot of inevitables for a so-called realist and a professor of political science, is it not?

In my view Mearsheimer misses at least two of the most obvious and plausible scenarios for the medium-term, in a manner that suggests he doesn't really understand the conflict in a very complex way (actually, that's kind of obvious). The first is the prospect of continued occupation or, as he would put it, the emergence of a fully-fledged apartheid state, resulting in an ever-escalating series of violent conflicts increasingly characterized by religious fanaticism. Indeed, he discusses the rise of religious fanaticism among Israelis as part of his evidence for why Jewish Americans will abandon Israel in the future, but leaves out the rise of Muslim extremism among Palestinians. In fact, the two go hand-in-hand and have created the most potent and dangerous alternative scenario to peace, but he doesn't seem to be aware of this powerful dynamic, although he vaguely cautions against violence. At present, the Palestinian debate really is between secularists who want a negotiated two-state peace agreement with Israel, and Islamists who want an Islamic state in either all or part of Palestine. There is a similar debate in Israel, which he acknowledges, but he doesn't seem to understand the synergy between the two and the outcome it could very well produce if the peaceful alternative is not realized.

It's possible, I suppose, that for whatever reason Hamas will simply go away or become irrelevant, but it seems most likely to me that if the effort led by the PLO to achieve a negotiated agreement with Israel should fail in the manner he describes, then Islamists led by Hamas will in fact be the primary beneficiaries, along with, of course, the extreme right wing Israeli settlers. The two will then be poised to lead their societies in a mutually suicidal religious war over God's will and holy places. It may be true that such a scenario leaves liberal and secular Palestinians nowhere else to turn except to a one-state civil rights movement, but it seems to me this ignores the possibility of the mainstream of the Palestinian cause becoming an Islamist movement or becoming dominated by Islamists or being subsumed in a broader regional Islamist discourse and agenda. Anyone who doesn't see this possibility is not seriously looking at the existing set of social and political forces at play at the present time, and is not presenting an analysis that should be taken particularly seriously. It pains me to say that on so many levels, but it has to be said.

The second scenario that Mearsheimer ignores or has failed to consider is the real Israeli "nuclear" option in this conundrum, which is not, as he mistakenly thinks, widespread ethnic cleansing. I suppose that's a possibility, but he's right to be skeptical that it can be resorted to as a practical matter except in conditions of extreme violence. However there is something much less dramatic than that which Israel can do as a game changer in the medium- to long-term that would completely alter the strategic realities he describes, especially the tension between Palestinian demographic pressure on the one hand and Jewish attachment to some key parts of the occupied territories on the other hand. This is, of course, the imposition of unilateral borders, more or less along the lines of the West Bank separation barrier, with or without some other parts of the occupied territories. Israel is, in fact, militarily capable of creating and enforcing such a fait accompli and annexing key parts of the West Bank, not including most population centers, in addition to municipal Jerusalem (by its own definition of the term) which has already been subject to de facto annexation, and presenting the Palestinians, the Arab states and the world with a situation in which a sizable majority of the occupied territories are no longer under direct Israeli occupation and which Israel formally renounces any claims over and in which it has no troops or settlers.

The reason this is a kind of "nuclear option" that Israel would only resort to as a last-ditch effort is that it will be very difficult to enforce, would place Israel's peace treaties with Egypt, and especially Jordan, in serious question, and consign Israel to many further decades, if not centuries, of warfare and enmity with the region and the broader Islamic world. It also begs the question of how the Israelis would deal with the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the territories it unilaterally annexes, but historically minorities of that size are, in fact, generally manageable, and the Israelis already experienced a similar problem in the aftermath of the 1948 war. Obviously such a "nuclear option" scenario carries, in the long run, similar risks to permanent occupation resulting in religious warfare, but it's more attenuated and much more amenable to Western support and international understanding than ethnic cleansing and maybe even formalized apartheid and far more imaginable than ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians. In the long run, it might also prove a foolhardy, suicidal and self-defeating gesture, but there is certainly a space between the absolute minimum right-wing Israelis can accept as an outcome and the kind of ethnic cleansing of the entire occupied territories Mearsheimer envisages. I don't know how he missed it, but obviously it's a measure that falls right in between continued occupation turning into apartheid and massive ethnic cleansing.

I am very sorry to say that the social, economic, political and military forces at play are much more likely to produce the two scenarios suggested above than Mearsheimer's somewhat fanciful and irrationally dogmatic prognostication that Israel will never accept a Palestinian state, and has no option other than apartheid which will inevitably lead to a Palestinian-dominated unified state. This scenario is not implausible, but it's certainly more improbable than the two I mention above, which don't factor into his analysis at all. They don't seem to have occurred to him.

Mearsheimer himself says that the emergent single state he envisages will not be democratic for the foreseeable future, but seems to think that this will not give rise to violent opposition, and can and will be challenged by Palestinians with a "South Africa-style approach," by which he seems to mean nonviolence aimed at global public opinion. I don't know what history of the ANC he's been reading, but the ANC did, in fact, rely on a carefully coordinated mixture of violence, including many dramatic acts of urban terrorism (not to mention necklacing), political outreach and propaganda to make its case to the ruling white minority that what it was offering was the best possible deal they could get. I'm delighted by the rise of Palestinian nonviolent protests in the West Bank, but it's crucially important to realize that they're taking place under Palestinian political conditions generally dominated by the PA and PLO, and consistent with their other peaceful strategies aimed at independence, including diplomacy and negotiations, state and institution building and boycotts and other economic measures aimed at the occupation and the settlements but not Israel itself. In other words, the logic of the nonviolent protests compliments the logic of the present PLO strategy perfectly, which is what has given them their broad strategic force and created significant anxiety among Israelis. If they were just spontaneous efforts by local villagers to respond to the separation barrier or some other abusive occupation practice without any national policy corollary, they wouldn't be nearly as significant.

It's possible that these nonviolent, peaceful approaches could make the transition away from the present PLO approach of seeking a negotiated agreement with Israel based on ending the occupation and towards some other approach based on eliminating Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian-dominated single state as Mearsheimer anticipates. But that is to take them out of a context in which they are consistent with the ethos and the intentions of the current national leadership and imagine an alternative national leadership which does not presently exist that fosters and marshals similar nonviolent and peaceful forms of resistance to discrimination and inequality, rather than occupation. Again, the specter of Islamism and armed struggle looms large, since it is, at present, the principal alternative to the PLO/PA approach within which nonviolent protests are taking root and being linked to a broad national strategy. Any analysis that doesn't factor the Islamist political and cultural trend into its set of variables is fatally flawed. Mearsheimer does acknowledge the possibility of a violent Palestinian reaction to continued occupation, but warns against it, suggesting that this is the only thing that might give Israel cover for another, much larger, round of ethnic cleansing. But given his scenario of certainty and inevitability, it's clear he doesn't really think that Palestinians are likely or even plausibly going to turn again to violence and armed resistance. Perhaps that's why in his analysis of plausible scenarios for the future, Hamas and the other Islamist movements play almost no part. Mearsheimer's analysis is missing too many obvious elements, and seems to be constructed for an intended effect rather than a sound analytical conclusion (I will return to that observation at the conclusion).

Mearsheimer says that Palestinians would be better off with a two state solution, although given his conclusion it's not clear why, but he claims that since they have no say in their future, they have no choice but to embrace a one-state agenda. However, he advises they should:

a) recognize this is a war of ideas;
b) adopt a "South Africa" policy of seeking to convert world public opinion;
c) use the Internet to communicate with the world;
d) build a stable of articulate spokespersons like Mustafa Barghouti (of all people), and seek political allies, especially Jewish allies;
e) emphasize they do not seek revenge against the Jews;
f) avoid any violence because it might give Israel the excuse for ethnic cleansing, and because any violent intifada will disrupt the effort to win over world public opinion.

This is not exactly what one could call an imaginative set of suggestions as it seems to correspond precisely to the imagination and much of the activities of the academic/online one-state constituency that Mearsheimer has now suddenly joined. Here, as usual, we are presented with a completely fake version of the ANC strategy reborn as some kind of international grassroots, boycott, public opinion and nonviolent strategy as the model for the Palestinians. Then there is the centrality of the internet, which no one can really doubt, but which is sure to appeal to online activists whose virtual work exists only online and nowhere else. Next come the "articulate spokespersons" and their "Jewish allies," a familiar vision of amber waves of Anna Baltzer sitting next to purple mountains of Mustapha Barghouti, making the case to the fruited plains of Jon Stewart audiences across the land. As for avoiding threats of generalized revenge and violence, only the clinically stupid or the criminally insane fail to understand the importance of that, and even Hamas, while it continues to hypocritically preach violence and armed struggle, has, for the meanwhile, turned away from active armed resistance and has suppressed it by others in Gaza. Everybody who is in the least rational gets this by now, but only for now. In the context of the collapse of all hopes of an end to the occupation and the imposition of formalized, permanent apartheid, can there be any doubt that violence is very likely to be a major feature of the Palestinian response? It's theoretically possible but practically extremely unlikely that their response will be entirely informed by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, if they follow the ANC path, it will be nothing of the kind.

Mearsheimer, as I have demonstrated, is oddly and unjustifiably categorical in his implicit assertion that he can clearly see exactly what will happen in the future, without virtually any doubt. All I can say is that the Michel de Nostredame Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Clairvoyance at the University of Chicago has a much better crystal ball than I do. But there are so many obvious and crucial missing elements in his analysis that it's hard to avoid the suspicion that he basically doesn't know what he's talking about. Mearsheimer has spent the past few years mainly focused on elaborating how much and why he dislikes the pro-Israel lobby and the extent to which it has a baneful effect on American politics and policy. Frankly, I find it hard to read this speech as anything other than a continuation of that agenda, and I think the crucial sentence in the whole lecture is, "What is truly remarkable about this situation is that the Israel lobby is effectively helping Israel commit national suicide." Now, I would certainly agree that anyone who is actively counseling or enabling Israel or the Palestinians to avoid peace and the painful, necessary compromises that will be required to achieve it is helping either or both of them to commit national suicide. But I detect something a little more in this remark, and it strikes me that this is the navel of the speech, so to speak, its probable starting point, the pointed jab he really wanted to make and around which he has constructed this entire, extremely shaky, argument.

Viewed in this light, Mearsheimer's talk, while purporting to be largely aimed at a Palestinian and pro-Palestinian audience, is probably really aimed more at the American Jewish pro-Israel constituency with which he has been feuding. If I'm right about this, and I think I am, then his speech is much more Abu Alaa' than Abunimah, in other words more like the way nationalist leaders in the West Bank have deployed the one state agenda as a threat to Israel rather than the earnest, passionate single-state devotion of its Arab-American advocates. His insistence that a two-state agreement has always been and remains by far the best option but is being taken off the table by Israel's policies further suggests this important distinction, since many one-state advocates loath the idea of an agreement to end the occupation with every fiber of their being and consider it a capitulation to racism and colonialism. I suppose it's possible that in a matter of a few weeks Mearsheimer genuinely had a sudden conversion to the religious-faith version of the one state agenda in which it is inevitable and unavoidable. But frankly I'm skeptical, and reading his talk in context, carefully, and between the lines suggests to me that it was probably primarily designed to further annoy, alarm, infuriate and frustrate Mearsheimer's antagonists in the Jewish pro-Israel community.

Insofar as they are aimed at Palestinians, his conclusions are absolutely pernicious. They play into their most traditional and damaging fantasy: the idea that Palestinian numbers and presence on the land will, sooner or later, negate the Zionist project and deliver power into Palestinian hands in the whole of historical Palestine. This was a deep-seated belief since at least the 20s, and in every phase of Palestinian political life since then, and it remains a potent article of faith among Palestinians even today. This misapprehension, proven wrong time and again in practice, has been a key element in the steady accumulation of defeats, setbacks and miscalculations that have delivered the Palestinian national project to its present woeful state. I'm not sure I can imagine, short of a jihadist rant, a worse or more damaging message to a Palestinian audience than Mearsheimer's conclusion:

"In sum, there are great dangers ahead for the Palestinians, who will continue to suffer terribly at the hands of the Israelis for some years to come. But it does look like the Palestinians will eventually get their own state, mainly because Israel seems bent on self-destruction."

What is the take away from that indefensible assertion? Of course it's that Palestinians don't really have to do anything, except avoid the kind of violence that might justify massive ethnic cleansing by Israel, and simply wait for the Israeli project to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. This is the key refrain of the siren song of the one-state agenda, the chorus of certainty between each and every verse. It takes a perfectly reasonable observation -- that because of the occupation Israel is charging headlong down the path towards self-destruction -- which is undoubtedly true, but attaches to that accurate assessment the weird corollary that this somehow means Palestinian victory. As I keep saying, again and again, it is entirely possible for either or, quite possibly, both sides to lose everything in this conflict. Nothing about it is a zero sum. Just as both Israelis and Palestinians require a peace agreement to secure a reasonable future, both of them are likely to face wretched futures as far as the imagination can justifiably be stretched in almost any scenario likely to be produced by a lack of peace (leaving aside, of course, science fiction-like fantasies that have no relation to the political and other forces that actually produce outcomes).

What Mearsheimer fails to see is that while it's true that extremists in the pro-Israel lobby are assisting Israel in its journey towards oblivion by counseling or enabling permanent occupation, he is performing the same Kevorkian-style tender mercy for the Palestinians by counseling and enabling the abandonment of efforts to end the occupation. Telling the Palestinians that they are doomed for a certain, probably long, term to endure formalized apartheid and there isn't really anything they can do to avoid that, but that in the long run they basically don't have to do much of anything for their national project to triumph since Israel will inevitably self-destruct is about as unhelpful, unrealistic and disempowering as anything I can imagine. It's been my long-standing suspicion that while Mearsheimer clearly doesn't like the pro-Israel lobby, he doesn't seem to really understand, or even care that much about the well-being of, the Palestinian people. That Mearsheimer is using them and their cause as a foil in his ongoing feud with the pro-Israel lobby, which he has been at odds with for so long he is starting to resemble, all but confirms this.

[shaayecanaan]

10. Do you (appreciate his drubbing of the article)? -nt-

[shira]

11. Yep - he does a fine job tearing apart this rabid neo-fascist Rightwing hate tract

Makes one wonder what political direction you're swaying to these days, if you know what I mean.

Just because you hold some Leftwing views and oppose some views that are Rightwing doesn't mean you're not Rightwing yourself.

[shaayecanaan]

12. I was just interested...

as to whether you found it difficult to swallow such phrases as "Israeli ethnic cleansing on a greater scale than in 1948 and 1967".

Nevertheless, I dont see a unilateral disengagement from the West Bank as being much of a prospect, for the following reasons:-

1. Israel may have been turned off unilateral engagement since its experience in Gaza.

2. As Ibish postulates, annexation of the land within the wall would probably end the treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It would almost certainly break the current detente with Fatah.

3. Much of the fence, including the long tendrils which reach out to the Ariel settlement, would be very difficult to defend strategically. The Gaza settlements were abandoned largely because it was impossible to defend them from mortar fire. Moreover, Israel would find it difficult to justify military force against Palestinian attempts to reclaim land that the world legitimately considers Palestinian.

4. As in Gaza and Lebanon, a withdrawal absent a peace agreement generally strengthens the hand of the militants.

[shira]

13. It's pretty sad you think ethnic cleansing is a possibility

I find the prospects of ethnic cleansing about as realistic as genocide, apartheid, poisoning the wells, and raping the livestock. Crap that's usually peddled on websites like David Duke's in which "Jewish Supremacy" must be countered, along with the Jewish media, Jewish controlled US gov't, etc.

In short, I don't give any thoughts to ethnic cleansing or any other Jewish conspiracy theory.

I mentioned unilateral withdrawal because it's something Michael Oren has advocated recently, but I agree with your points #1-4. The problem is that the PA won't agree to a reasonable deal, even if Israel agreed to proceed with the Geneva Initiative that Carter, Chomsky, and others advocate. That simply won't meet the PA's minimal requirements, not to mention Hamas - which will never make peace with Israel. The RoR is the major impediment to peace, not borders, not Jerusalem, and certainly not the settlements. It will be virtually impossible for Arab leadership to agree to a very limited RoR to Israel when for 60 years they've promised all refugees that they would victoriously return to Israel as conquerors. If the Arab League agreed to limited RoR, they would have to admit the past 60 years of keeping refugees locked up have been a complete waste. That simply won't happen in our lifetimes.

[shaayecanaan]

14. Its pretty sad you're resorting to throwing drunken, desperate haymakers...

I find the prospects of ethnic cleansing about as realistic as genocide, apartheid, poisoning the wells, and raping the livestock.

So do I. So does Mearsheimer. So does Ibish. On the other hand, wouldnt you agree that the chances of a repeat of the holocaust against the Jews in Europe or the US are similarly far-fetched and fantastical? If so, a substantial number of people are really devoting themselves to a futile exercise, arent they?

As to the phrase itself, I merely wondered whether the reference to ethnic cleansing in 1948 was difficult for you to swallow, as usually that sort of thing makes you froth at the mouth.

[whosinpower]

15. I think this article is word crap

He suggests that there are two outcomes that Mearsheimer missed - and then goes on to describe that these outcomes are what Mearsheimer included.

snip - The first is the prospect of continued occupation or, as he would put it, the emergence of a fully-fledged apartheid state, resulting in an ever-escalating series of violent conflicts increasingly characterized by religious fanaticism.

snip - The second scenario that Mearsheimer ignores or has failed to consider is the real Israeli "nuclear" option in this conundrum, which is not, as he mistakenly thinks, widespread ethnic cleansing. Obviously such a "nuclear option" scenario carries, in the long run, similar risks to permanent occupation resulting in religious warfare, but it's more attenuated and much more amenable to Western support and international understanding than ethnic cleansing and maybe even formalized apartheid and far more imaginable than ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians.

Both of these scenarios are, in fact, included in Mearheimers four possible outcomes - the author simply refuses to see it in short, clear, consise sentences. Both end in Apartheid type states.

The author goes on to suggest that Mearsheimer is just angry at the jewish lobby and this is why he has said the single state is unavoidable.....but then says "it's true that extremists in the pro-Israel lobby are assisting Israel in its journey towards oblivion by counseling or enabling permanent occupation".

21 agonizing paragraphs of word crap to say that Mearsheimer is just upset with the american jewish lobby and doesn't really care for palistinians anyways....so his four outcomes must not be taken seriously.....good grief.

[shaayecanaan]

16. He's actually one of the good guys...

Ibish has done a lot for the Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee, is reasonable, and presents and means well.

I still don't think unilateral withdrawal is much of a prospect. Previously, the Palestinians have agreed to have a demilitarised state and to allow Israeli intelligence stations in the West Bank. Unilateral withdrawal would mean both of those advantages would be off the table.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shira]

17. It Takes Two Sides to Achieve Two States, or Why Mearsheimer Is Wrong on Israel

You have to hand it to John Mearsheimer.

Just when you think he can't outdo himself for shoddy scholarship and sheer chutzpah, he surprises.

His co-authored screed on the "Israel Lobby," replete with dark images of a conspiracy perpetrated on American foreign policy by sinister pro-Israel forces, was bad enough. Reviews were scathing, and rightly so.

Now Mearsheimer has reached new heights of ignorance and ignominy.

His April 29th speech to the Palestine Center in Washington is a must-read for its misinformed, misguided, and mendacious outlook.

Posing as a Middle East maven, he catered to his audience, liberally sprinkling his remarks with defamatory references to Israeli policy. Israel was accused of everything from "massacres" to "brutal assaults," from "massive cleansing" to "racism," from "apartheid" to "colonization."

For Mearsheimer, the historical narrative is straightforward. It's all about Zionist "expansionism" stifling the quest for peace and human dignity. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are nothing more than unfortunate pawns in the Israeli power play, with no control over their own destiny and, heaven forbid, no responsibility for their own predicament.

Mearsheimer refuses to acknowledge that it takes two sides to achieve two states.

Missing, therefore, from his tedious and repetitive text are any references whatsoever to the 1947 Partition Plan, which proposed a two-state solution to the competing claims of Jewish and Arab nationalism - rejected by the Arab side - or the subsequent Arab declaration of war on the fledgling state of Israel the next year.

Is there a war in history which did not produce a stream of refugees? Of course, for Mearsheimer, the responsibility lies solely on Israel's shoulders, even though the Arab side started the war. And don't hold your breath for any mention of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. That would disturb Mearsheimer's idée fixe.

He also entirely ignores how Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza - the Six-Day War, which threatened Israel's destruction - and subsequent peacemaking efforts along the way.

For instance, he notes that Prime Minister Barak "seriously flirted with the idea of creating a Palestinian state at Camp David in July 2000," but never explains why it did not come to pass. President Clinton has provided the answer: Arafat was to blame.

Referring to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni), Mearsheimer asserts, "It is by no means clear that either of them would be willing or able to make the concessions that would be necessary to create a legitimate Palestinian state. Certainly, Olmert did not do so when he was prime minister."

Really? According to none other than Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat, Olmert offered a remarkable deal in 2008, including a shared Jerusalem and territory equaling 100 percent of the West Bank. Like the Clinton-Barak offer of 2000, it was turned down by the Palestinian side.

In other words, Mearsheimer, so eager to protect his airtight narrative of a bellicose Israel uninterested in a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians, simply glides past all evidence to the contrary, including surveys of Israeli public opinion that regularly reaffirm support for a two-state accord.

Here is his assessment of the current state of affairs: "The Palestinians are badly divided among themselves and not in a good position to make a deal with Israel and then stick to it." That sounds reasonable, even if he never once mentions Hamas by name or the nature of the PA-Hamas conflict. But then there's the very next sentence: "That problem is fixable with time and help from Israel and the United States." Once again, the onus is on Israel, not the Palestinians, to sort out an internecine Palestinian dispute that has endured for years.

And speaking of Hamas, notably absent from Mearsheimer's speech is a single mention of Israel's security environment. In his world, there are no Hamas tunnels, rockets, and mortars; no Hezbollah arsenal; no Iranian nuclear program; no Syrian arms transfers; no al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades; and no Palestinian incitement against Israel, Zionism, or Jews.

No, those things presumably don't exist in Mearsheimer's mind. Perhaps they are just figments of the Israeli imagination, or are inflated by Israel to divert attention from its "refusal" to countenance a peace deal, or have no relevance to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

So how does Israel get away with it? Again, for Mearsheimer, the answer is clear-cut. Diabolical forces at play in the United States protect Israel. Who might they be? Christian Zionists, he claims, coupled with a group he maliciously dubs the "new Afrikaners" - Jews in the U.S. who have "blind loyalty" to Israel, "will back Israel no matter what it does," and who will "convince themselves and others that Israel is not an apartheid state."

Well, I may have missed out on President Nixon's enemies' list, but I made Mearsheimer's, and I consider it a badge of honor, irrespective of what slur he uses. And since he lumps together everyone who dares to stand up for Israel's right to exist and defend itself, including many who actively support a two-state deal, the company is quite illustrious.

It includes, for example, Lester Crown and Mort Zuckerman. In 2005, they helped raise funds to purchase greenhouses in Gaza and, in the wake of Israel's unilateral withdrawal, present them as a goodwill gift to local Gazans. The gesture was meant to protect 3,500 jobs and boost the economy. Instead, the greenhouses quickly became targets of Palestinian violence and looting.

It's even more illuminating to see who made Mearsheimer's list of "righteous Jews" in his outrageous "selection" process.

In 2007, Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen Walt claimed to be "'pro-Israel,' in the sense that we support its right to exist, admire its many achievements, want its citizens to enjoy secure and prosperous lives, and believe that the United States should come to Israel's aid if its survival is in danger."

Perplexing, then, that the Jews who made Mearsheimer's cut - and merit his applause - include:

Noam Chomsky, who said of Israel's creation, "I think that a socialist binationalist position was correct then , and remains so today." Chomsky has also said that Hezbollah, a group that calls for Israel's destruction and doesn't much love Jews, either, has a "reasoned" and "persuasive" case for keeping its arsenal of missiles.

Richard Falk, who wrote of the Second Intifada, "Suicide bombers appeared as the only means still available by which to inflict sufficient harm on Israel so that the struggle could go on."

Tony Judt, who asserted, "Israel, in short, is an anachronism."

Sara Roy, whose review of a new book about Hamas was rejected by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs because, according to the editor-in-chief, "all reviewers found the piece one-sided" in favor of Hamas.

Philip Weiss, who proclaims that "My feelings are not neutral about Zionism; I don't like it."

And the list goes on.

If John Mearsheimer actually cares a whit about Israel, why does he admire so many people who want it to disappear?

Mearsheimer has long ago lost any semblance of academic stature on the Middle East - if he ever had it. Instead, he has turned himself into a maniacally obsessed cheerleader for the most rabid anti-Israel voices.

Fortunately, his impact on the real Middle East is nil.

But tragically, his impact on impressionable students passing through his university classroom is daily.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/mearsheimers-mere-slime_b_565244.html

[whosinpower]

18. It takes two sides to create two states

And in the absence of one....then what?

When I say absence - Hamas is not acceptable - the PLO was not acceptable, Fatah was not acceptable, Abbas is weak and holds little authority over his people.....at every turn, the leaders of the palistinians fail. What does this author expect exactly? By some miracle of miracles, one palistinian will rise up, against all odds, against a generation of occupation and brute repression - he will rise up, unite his people, create a real state of Palistine and be a friend to Israel????

And yet, this author thinks Mearshiemer is deluding himself......

[Shaktimaan]

19. Not for nothing...

but the Zionists did exactly that, against far worse odds, with far greater challenges. It takes more than a single charismatic person to create a state, at any rate. How far would Gandhi gotten without Nehru? Point being, the Palestinians bear a great deal of the responsibility for the creation of their own state. If they are ultimately not able to pull it off, then it creates a serious problem for both nations.

The main difference being that the Israelis would seek to insulate themselves from such a problem, while the Palestinians would be unable to.

However it remains the Palestinians responsibility. Israel may retard or aid the effort, but either way it remains up to the Palestinians to make it work. If they aren't able to then that would truly suck. But I don't believe that Israel owes them a state. Certainly not at the expense of its own security.