Notebook

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August 7, 2002

The U.S. and Israel

Cathy P. wrote:

What Israel really needs to help convince it to change is an end to the unconditional economic, military, and diplomatic support of the United States — really the only thing enabling Israel to continue defying the world and international law.

The U.S. has never offered "unconditional" support to Israel. But you're right that the U.S. can influence Israel. The point that Halevi was making in the article I quoted is that Israel needs help finding a way to remain a viable state while also achieving real peace with its neighbors, including the Palestinians. His main point — which strikes me as historically accurate — is that Israel has taken risks for peace when the international community has seemed genuinely committed to Israel's existence and security. Then Israel feels secure enough to take a few risks. Sharon isn't taking risks right now. Why? Because he believes Arafat is untrustworthy, because he suspects the world will betray Israel, and because some Palestinians — including Arafat's faction — are deliberately targeting non-combatant civilians.

The current problem is not just that the U.S. isn't putting pressure on Israel; it's that the U.S. and Europe aren't putting enough pressure on the rest of the Arab world, either. What's needed is a decrease in violence against civilians, followed by concessions from each side and a real plan for peace.

Hmmm. From many accounts I've read, Israel entered the Oslo peace process only as a result of the Intifada, and the realization that the Palestinians were never going to go quietly into the night. The Israelis have always come to the bargaining table as a result of necessity due to some violent confrontation. Witness the Egyptian peace treaty, which the Israelis were not even remotely considering until the Yom Kippur war showed them how vulnerable they really were.

The Egyptian successes in the Yom Kippur war gave Egypt cover to negotiate, too, since Israel had devastated its army in 1967. Both sides could negotiate from strength. What's needed now is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to find enough legitimacy in each other's eyes to make some concessions and to appear to negotiate from positions of strength. The tragedy of the Palestianians' situation is that their leadership has staked its legitimacy and popularity on terrorism. Finding ways to encourage Palestinian reformers — people who could start to rebuild a society on something other than martyrdom — strikes me as one of the most pressing international issues.

And I'm curious: are there forms of "violent confrontation" that you would consider illegitimate ways of getting Israel to the bargaining table?

Well, I say "If the existence of a Jewish state depends on the theft of someone else's land and the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of that land, then the Jewish state has no right to exist."

That's an awfully high standard for the existence of a state. Do you think Israel has a legitimate claim to any of its territory? Do you believe the "ethnic cleansing" happened in the 1940s? In the 1960s? Now? Do you make any distinctions between them?

Do you also happen to believe that the United States "depends on the theft of someone else's land"? Do you believe that U.S. history involved "ethnic cleansing"? Would those things make the U.S. illegitimate? If so, have you packed your bags? Or do acknowledge enough shades of gray to try to make the best of a tragic history?

UUsMiddleEast 8.7.02