The End of the Abbas Era?

My latest piece for Zeek Magazine explores the realities and ramifications of Mahmoud Abbas’ announcement that he will not seek re-election. Click here to read it.

Moving to The Forward, My latest piece

Zeek Magazine is now running my column weekly and, in much bigger news, has now partnered with The Forward. My latest piece for Zeek is up at the new site, a review of Obama’s biggest mistakes thus far in the Mideast and why they have largely been exaggerated.

The Dangers of One-State Fantasies

In my latest piece in Zeek Magazine, I review the new book by Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine. His book addresses the ideology and inherent dangers of the currently marginal political movement for a single state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Though it is currently marginal, the movement has the potential for growth as the two-state solution becomes increasingly difficult to achieve and as repeated peace efforts bear little fruit. But a on-estate idea is not just a distraction and a utopian vision, if anything like it were ever realized, the result would be disaster on many levels. Even its achievement could only ever come about through years of conflict that is much worse than anything we’ve ever seen.

Ibish recognizes that for the Palestinians to ever have freedom and self-determination Israelis must agree. He makes a strong case that two-staters should all become familiar with and one-staters should seriously consider, even if only because, thus far, their leading ideologues have not even attempted seriously to respond to the issues Ibish raises. Read my review here.

Monitoring the Monitors

My latest piece for Zeek Magazine is up on the Jewcy site. It deals with the ad hominem attacks by some right-wing groups on human rights and peace groups. Tell your friends!

Unnatural Growth and the Folly of Tony Judt

In my latest piece for Zeek magazine, I take on the absurd argument for granting exceptions for “natural growth” in a settlement freeze. I also discuss what it will take for President Obama to take such a freeze and make it something significant in the long term. This is crucial, because there is a serious danger that all a freeze will be is a brief stoppage in construction, causing a lot of tension between the US and Israel, expending a great deal of political capital and

Areas of settlement jurisdiction, courtesy of B'Tselem. Area within the municipal boundary Area within the borders of the Regional Councils

ending up with little gain.

But I want to mention one more point. In today’s New York Times, British historian Tony Judt, who has come under frequent criticism for his support for a single state solution in Israel-Palestine, has an op-ed arguing that Israel will not remove any settlements, ever and a freeze is in fact a defeat for American efforts for peace.

I don’t want to spend much time deconstructing Judt’s argument. He’s made some interesting ones in the past, but this one is pretty weak. The op-ed betrays a lack of understanding of modern Israel (Judt seems stuck in an image of Israel that is nearly 50 years out of date), and of the settlement issue. Judt uses Ma’ale Adumim as emblematic of settlements and why they will not be removed.

And here is the point. Ma’ale Adumim, like Ariel and the Gush Etzion region are the built-up “blocs” that are generally referred to as possibly remaining in Israeli hands in the event of a peace deal. Gush Etzion is both the most likely to remain Israeli and the least problematic geographically. Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim both extend well into the West Bank and it will take some creativity to figure out how to reconcile a contiguous and viable Palestinian state with those settlements becoming part of Israel.

A new and really important book

Dan Fleshler is a veteran of the mainstream Jewish community and the pro-Israel, pro-peace world as well. He has written a book that everyone concerned about US Middle East policy and how to change it should read. It’s called Transforming America’s Israel Lobby: The Limits of Its Power and the Potential For Change.

I review it here for Zeek Magazine.

This is one of the most important books out there. Not only because it is a much fuller and more sober exposition of the “Israel Lobby” than anything else out there, but also because it is not merely academic–it also suggests how a peace lobby might be built.

I hope you’ll read mu review, but even more, I hope you’ll buy this book. I rarely act as a salesman for anyone, but this time, it’s really worth it.

Frank Talk From Martin Indyk

Martin Indyk was twice ambassador to Israel. He used to be research director for AIPAC and was the founding Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

When people write about “The Israel Lobby,” whether sensibly or otherwise, the very icon of their subject is Martin

Ehud Olmert and Martin Indyk

Indyk.

In this translation of an interview with Yediot Achronot (interesting that there is, as yet, no English version of the original article), Indyk speaks quite bluntly on a variety of issues. Most of them concern the real reasons why Camp David failed (not surprisingly, Indyk makes it clear that the US and Israel were just as much to blame as the Palestinians), and why US involvement in the peace process has brought no progress.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better explanation as to why Obama is heading in the right direction and why anyone who has any concern about Israel’s future or the Palestinians’ well-being should be doing everything they can to support him, even if their own ideologies don’t match his.

Benny Morris: A Man Everyone Can Love to hate

Benny Morris has a new book out where he examines the rise of the one-state solution in the discourse around the Israel-Palestine conflict. I review it here.

The review has much of what i would want to say about Morris. But I think it’s important to emphasize two things.

One is that Morris is clearly racist in his approach. While he’s certainly willing to be critical, even cynical about Israeli leaders, he seems to approach every statement by an Arab leader as being a lie until proven otherwise.

The second, however, is that despite this serious problem, Morris’ work has been groundbreaking and, though inconsistent, very important. This current book was foreshadowed at the end of his previous one, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. That book, which spiralled downward at the end, was perhaps Morris’ best and is widely seen as the best book yet written on the 1947-49 war (a view i tend to agree with).

Morris is, in many ways, the antithesis of Ilan Pappe. The latter embraces the futility of objectivity and writes

Benny Morris

unabashedly from a particular point of view. The former strives to be objective and, while he often falls short like the rest of us, he often does overcome his own baises and produce important work that doesn’t necessarily support his own personal views.

That’s why it’s important to recognize the two Benny Morrises. One is a very poor polemicist whose racism often seeps through. The other is an excellent researcher who is often successful at getting beyond his own biases and prejudices and whose work merits the most serious attention.

Benny Morris is an enigma, but you can’t deal with one side of him without the other. His work should not be dismissed because of his views, but his work should also not give credence to his more base views. And, it should also be noted, that being an excellent historian doesn’t necessarily mean one is a good political analyst.

More in my review, published here.

The Beginning of the End of the “Israel Lobby”

Two former staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had the charges of espionage against them dropped today. The government decided it was going to have too difficult of a time in winning this case.

Think AIPAC won? Think again.

Pastor John Hagee addresses an AIPAC conference

This case has been pending since August of 2005, and you can bet that the attention it has thrown onto AIPAC’s activities was very much unwanted in those halls. The recent re-surfacing of Rep. Jane Harman’s alleged attempt to get the case dismissed years back no doubt infuriated them more.

And well it should. AIPAC and other groups that busily lobby on Capitol Hill to either maintain the status quo or even strengthen Israel’s hold on the Palestinians are losing ground. It’s not a position that enjoys much popular support anymore.

AIPAC’s influence is visibly slipping. In the past, they wisely avoided getting too cozy with any particular political group, be it one of the two parties or a political wave. But the neoconservatives tempted them too much.

It wasn’t merely neocon influence. It was the confluence of events: Ariel Sharon’s cozy relationship with the Bush Administration; that administration’s unprecedented indulgence of almost all Israeli policies and decisions; the events of 9/11; the increased hawkishness and/or outspokenness of other Jewish “leaders” like Abe Foxman, David Harris and Malcolm Hoenlein; the viciousness of the second intifada.

With Friends Like These…

It hasn’t received all that much coverage, but the Netherlands passed a bill on Tuesday barring all contact with Hamas.

The issue here is not whether or not engagement with Hamas is the proper course. The politics behind this bill, however, are most interesting.

Geert Wilders

The bill was introduced in the Dutch parliament by the Party for Freedom and Democracy, a far right party whose leader, Geert Wilders, has embraced controversy with his explicit hatred of Islam.

Wilders’ party is gaining popularity in the Netherlands. According to this report in Ha’aretz, the party currently holds nine seats in parliament, but would win 32 seats if elections were held now.

Wilders has been charged in an Amsterdam court with incitement to hatred and in February was banned from entering the United Kingdom due to his hate-filled speeches regarding Islam.

Wilders and his party make support for Israel a major part of their platform. Many welcome this. But is this really the wagon Israel and the Jewish people want to hitch to?

Here in the US, support for Israel has become synonymous with neo-conservatism, and the American right wing, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews holds liberal views and does not support the neocon idea of what “pro-Israel” means.

More to the point, American adoption of such policies has led to the most hopeless period in the Israel-Arab conflict, the one we are in now. They have, unintentionally one presumes, helped build a great deal of support for Hamas and also even more radical Islamist groups while seriously weakening more moderate Palestinian leaders.

Of course this is by no means entirely due to the rightward shift in the US from 2001 through 2008, but it was a major factor. And the ongoing linkage of Israel with right-wing policies (a perception aided greatly by Avigdor Lieberman, of course) increases the alienation of Israel from the mainstream, both for much of the West and for the majority of world Jewry as well.

The friendship of Wilders’ party is something Jews and certainly the Israeli leadership should be saying “thanks, but no thanks” to in as loud a voice as possible.