Archive | January, 2013

The One State Fantasy

28 Jan

Let me state for the record that I am neither a two-stater nor a one-stater nor a no-stater.

The only long-term resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that I favor is that both peoples – Israelis and Palestinians – ultimately live in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in peace, and with full democratic rights. I don’t much care how that is achieved so long as it is through negotiations and not violence.

However, in the real world and right now, I think the two-state solution is the only possible one and that it is the one that needs to be pursued.

I don’t believe that it is likely that it will be, with any seriousness anyway. And that is because the Israeli government, backed by the United States, won’t even consider (1) dismantling the settlements, (2) withdrawing from the West Bank, (3) ending the blockade of Gaza, and (4) sharing Jerusalem — and those are the prerequisites for a Palestinian state.

Given all that, even if Hamas which is, along with Netanyahu’s government the other obstacle to two states, announced tomorrow that it fully supports Israel’s right to security within the pre-’67 lines, nothing would happen.

So, while I support the two-state solution, I don’t believe it can be implemented unless and until the United States conditions our support for Israel – both aid and diplomatic support such as we provide both at the United Nations and on such matters as Iran — on Israel agreeing to negotiate toward fully ending the occupation.

So why don’t I favor pursuing the one-state option instead?

That is an easy one. Given that the Netanyahu government refuses to even consider withdrawing from the West Bank (or even freezing settlements there) in order to achieve the two-state solution, it is ridiculous to even contemplate that it would consider allowing all of Israel itself to be folded into one Israeli/Palestinian state.

The logic of those who say that Israel has destroyed the two-state option and that now only one state makes sense is analogous to this: a child asks his parents for a cookie before dinner. They say “no.” He responds: “Then how about three cookies.”

It makes no sense.

Some one-state supporters argue that one-state could be established if Palestinians simply sought Israeli citizenship rather than an end to the occupation. Soon there would be a Palestinian majority that would use its democratic rights to change the nature of Israel from a Jewish state to a state for all the people who live there. The United Nations would guarantee those rights.

Except it would never happen.

Israel might agree to annex all the territories but it would never agree to grant Palestinian citizens full rights. The Palestinians of Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin would simply revert to the position they were in before the Palestinian Authority was created in 1993.

They would be living under occupation without democratic rights. And, of course, the United Nations would not be able to do anything because the United States would use its veto. I already can hear the argument from the United States ambassador to the United Nation: “The United States has to veto the resolution granting Palestinians democratic rights inside Israel because ‘one size fits all’ democracy does not apply to Israel which is surrounded by enemies….” Etc. Etc.

In short, talking about one state is simply a formula for maintaining the status quo.

The only hope for now is working to achieve the two-state solution. The process would need to start with the United States demanding an Israeli settlement freeze and not backing down as in the past. Once the freeze is in effect, the Palestinians would return to negotiations. Hamas would have the option of joining once an agreement is reached.

Yes, it sounds far-fetched. But negotiations along these lines have actually made progress in the past, most recently under the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert.

The only progress toward one state (if that is what anyone wants to call it) is when Israel expands settlements which will lead inevitably to one state called Israel with stateless and rights-less Palestinians living inside it.

The United States should insist on negotiations toward a two-state solution now and that means applying pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to start talking. Once two states are achieved, and they actually have been living side by side in peace for a decade or two, one-state might look like a serious option. For now, it barely qualifies as a dream.

 

Obama 2, Netanyahu 0

24 Jan

Obama 2. Netanyahu 0

The final returns  are in from the Israeli election and it appears that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will stay on. The big surprise of the election was that centrist Yair Lapid’s new party ran so strongly.

But Lapid’s showing was only that: a surprise. The only thing new about Lapid is that he represents the first time Israeli voters chose a media personality for a top position. At 49, he’s young (by Israeli standards), handsome and a good talker in both Hebrew and English. In terms of substance, he is nothing new. Most significantly, he is utterly conventional when it comes to issues of war and peace, specifically the Palestinians and Iran.

Does that mean the Israeli election changed nothing?

Absolutely not.  It changed a great deal because Netanyahu did so poorly. Yes, he will likely remain as prime minister but in a far weaker position than he was before the election. Prior to this week’s election, Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party held 42 seats. It is now down to 31, a dramatic decline and a personal repudiation of the prime minister who leads the party.

Just prior to the election Netanyahu, clearly expecting a landslide victory, said that he would run for another term after his upcoming term ended. That seems considerably less likely now. Suddenly he seems to be a man of the past, with Israeli commentators already scouting out the next prime minister from among the various parties (like Lapid’s) that did better than expected.

The new weaker Netanyahu is good news for President Obama. A half-year ago, Obama was struggling to win re-election while Netanyahu was riding high, so high that he defied tradition and sent a signal to his American friends that he would like to see Obama replaced by a Republican.

In March 2011, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress where he was repeatedly interrupted with standing ovations as he enunciated hard line policies that were at variance with Obama’s. Obama had to play catch up, lest Netanyahu weaken the president’s own standing here at home by rallying Israel’s supporters against  the president. As late as the fall campaign, a worried Obama kept enunciating his solidarity with Netanyahu’s policies while Netanyahu’s friends like Sheldon Adelson, made clear that the right choice for Israel was Romney.

And then came the one-two punches. First Obama won re-election easily, earning a strong new mandate and carrying 70% of the Jewish vote in the process. For all the publicity it received, the Adelson push in the Jewish community accomplished nothing. And now Netanyahu, having called elections to achieve a strong mandate, barely won at all.

In short, the results of the two elections could be summed up as Obama 2, Netanyahu 0.

 

Obama is now in a position to squeeze Netanyahu hard. Does Obama want to push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement?  If so, he is in a strong position to achieve it. The same applies to negotiating a deal with Iran without worrying that Netanyahu will successfully marshal his forces against him.

After all, even before this week’s election, Obama nominated Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense despite the opposition of many of Netanyahu’s friends here. Hagel seems headed for confirmation while the lobby has seemingly given up the fight. It says it can live with Hagel.

The bottom line is that while the Israeli election did not change anything in terms of Israeli policy, it did severely weaken Prime Minister Netanyahu vis a vis President Obama. This change in the respective standing of the two leaders will particularly be noticed by Israelis who, in contrast to the truculent prime minister, do not like to be at loggerheads with a strong, popular American president. From now on, Netanyahu’s confrontational rhetoric directed at Washington will sound tinny.  It is Obama who holds the winning cards.

The question is whether he will play them.

A few months ago, I would have said that he wouldn’t. But since his re-election, and particularly following that splendidly aggressive inaugural address, I’m beginning to think he might.

He has no reason to fear Netanyahu now. Not only is he a second term president who is thinking in terms of legacy and not re-election, Netanyahu is on the ropes. If Obama acts strategically, he may be able to win over the Israeli people too. No, the election was not about foreign policy. It was about achieving some sort of domestic normalcy. Obama can demonstrate (at least to the half of the population that voted for centrist parties) that the only way to achieve that, once and for all, is through achieving peace with the Palestinians and ending the politics of bluster.

This is the moment to apply pressure. And the likely foreign policy team of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (along with Vice President Joe Biden who took a strong stand against Netanyahu early in the first term) are the people to do it. This is a moment that may not be repeated. Obama should go for it: an end to the occupation, two states, and peace and security for both peoples.

Just do it.

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Praise The Lord: AIPAC Is Losing

15 Jan

The news that Sen. Chuck Schumer will support the Hagel nomination means that Hagel will almost certainly be confirmed as Secretary of Defense.  It does not mean that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is not opposing the appointment. It means that, at long last, it has been defeated.

It is obvious why AIPAC  is so insistent that it is not trying to prevent former senator Chuck Hagel from becoming the Secretary of Defense. As investigative journalist Max Blumenthal put it in a piece published yesterday:

AIPAC has good reasons to keep its fingerprints off the public campaign to demonize Hagel. For one, AIPAC thrives on its ability to influence lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, requiring it to avoid alienating the key congressional Democrats who rubberstamp the anti-Palestinian resolutions and Iran sanctions legislation it routinely authors. If AIPAC waded into the Republican-led crusade against Hagel in a public way, it might enrage some of its most reliable Democratic allies in Congress, generating unnecessary acrimony that might complicate future lobbying initiatives.

The other reasons Blumenthal enumerates are AIPAC’s fears of contributing to the bad feelings between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stemming from Netanyahu’s open preference for Mitt Romney in the recent U.S. election.

And then there is AIPAC’s complicated legal status stemming from the fact that, unlike other lobbies for foreign governments, it is not registered as such with the Department of Justice. If it was, its activities would be severely circumscribed. Seeming to lay low, while orchestrating events from behind a screen, makes sense.

AIPAC does not have to issue directives from its headquarters in Washington to convey its desires.

In fact, it usually doesn’t. It never likes to leave fingerprints and still manages to get what it wants because policymakers, media people, etc., know what its preferences are without public pronouncements. This even applies to what AIPAC considers its most significant annual achievement: passage of the $3.5 billion Israel aid package and making sure that there are no strings or conditions attached.

Between 1993 and 1995 I worked for a member of the House Appropriations Committee. That is the body that writes the legislation that provides the money after its Subcommittee on Foreign Operations submits its recommendations which are then quickly approved and, after adoption by the full House and Senate, go to the president for his signature.

Here is how it works. AIPAC provides each staffer on the subcommittee with legislative “language” that spells out precisely what it wants for Israel and the amount of dollars it wants for each provision. The language helpfully arrives in electronic form so the staffer does not have to do anything but drop it into a letter that each legislator writes to the chairman of the committee. Each staffer receives the same “wish list” from AIPAC ensuring that each member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations will be requesting the same thing.

Invariably there are extra items to be requested, above and beyond the usual provisions, which  AIPAC hands out as gifts to members of the committee it particularly favors. That member will be the only one asking for this “goody” for Israel and can then claim credit for it. That credit can then be cashed in the form of contributions from donors associated with the lobby for the legislator’s next campaign

The key point is that this is all done in the dark. No member of the Appropriations Committee would ever admit that all they do in crafting the Israel aid package is drop in Israel’s request, as composed and delivered by AIPAC. If a current staffer ever made the mistake of stating publicly that this is how it is done, she would not be a staffer for long. The bottom line is that AIPAC’s direct role is kept secret. In fact, I don’t think anyone has ever described this process until right now.

Achieving passage of the Israel aid package is AIPAC’s most public initiative. Nonetheless, it pretends that the aid legislation simply arises from the will of Congress and the president as a popular manifestation of admiration for Israel.

Needless to say, it does the same thing on its other signature annual achievement: piling sanction after sanction on Iran. It does the same with its lesser efforts like all those resolutions supporting Israel’s wars on Gaza, condemning Palestinian actions and commending Israeli prime ministers for their supposed efforts to achieve peace or combat terrorism. All these arise from AIPAC’s offices, are delivered to Capitol Hill and then are passed with hardly a dissenting voice, all without AIPAC claiming credit for itself. In fact, it invariably hails Congress for doing the work it itself actually did.

So don’t fall for the ridiculous idea that AIPAC is not behind the effort to defeat Chuck Hagel. It almost never operates in the daylight, why would it start now?

Remember, I was the fortunate recipient of the 1982 memo from Steve Rosen, then AIPAC’s deputy director (and subsequently fired by AIPAC after being indicted on an espionage charge) that said the following. Rosen sent it to me on my very first day working at the organization.

It read, in its entirety: “A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the light.”

That is the reason it is operating against Hagel in the dark. Would you expect it to shine a flash light in its self?

No, AIPAC lost. Here is another sign. President Obama is now saying that Netanyahu’s conduct indicates that “ Israel doesn’t know what its best interests are.” It appears that Netanyahu and AIPAC are facing a nightmare: a second term Democratic president who isn’t afraid of the lobby. Stay strong, Mr. President. 

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Obama Crushes AIPAC

9 Jan
In 1983 or thereabouts, during my four year stint at AIPAC, the powerful organization that is the main component of the pro-Israel lobby, I asked Tom Dine, its executive director, if a president of the United States could ever successfully challenge Israel’s behavior even in cases when U.S. national security interests were clearly at stake.

My question related specifically to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967 and which seemingly made an Israeli-Palestinian agreement impossible. It also was, as it is now, the primary source of Arab and Muslim anger against the United States.

The reason for my question was my fear that the power of the lobby was such that a president could not prevail against it.

Even matters that did not directly affect Israel like U.S. arms sales to allies like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, would meet massive resistance from Israel, the lobby and its huge chorus of supporters in Congress.

How, I asked Dine, could the United States get ever get Israel to actually yield occupied territory if it became clear that the Arabs were ready for peace, as in fact became the case after the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO?

Dine responded that although he hoped the day would come when Israeli leaders (and hence the lobby) would be ready for “compromise,” he did not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn’t want to do given the power of the organization he led and “our friends in Congress.”

But then he added a caveat: “Of course, if a president pushed hard enough, and told the American people that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was damaging U.S. interests and that he had a plan to end it, he would prevail.”

He elaborated: “By that I mean AIPAC would have no choice but to support him. We can never defeat a president who reaches over the heads of AIPAC and Congress and invokes his prerogatives as president of the United States or, even more, the national interest.

The logic behind Dine’s thinking was simply that American Jews would never allow themselves to be perceived as putting Israel’s interests over America’s because (1) that would be bad for Jews and (2) American Jews are Americans before they are anything else.

It is fine to strongly support the Israeli government even when it is at odds with the U.S. government – but only up to a point. The point is when that support clearly contradicts U.S. interests, as defined by the president.

That is why the lobby was so outraged when Reagan administration officials suggested the lobby’s opposition to an arms sale to Saudi Arabia represented the wrong answer to the question of “Reagan or Begin?” That little phrase – “Reagan or Begin” – won the battle for the administration.

That is why any criticism of the lobby that even hints at the lobby’s putting Israel’s interests above America’s produces such fury, hence the recent hysteria over the use of the term “Israel Firster.”

American Jews will not tolerate the suggestion that they are anything but good Americans. Fighting a president over a national security issue is simply not sustainable.

Although a president’s choice for Secretary of Defense is not in really a national security issue, it does get to the question of an American president and his security prerogatives. After all, the Department of Defense personifies U.S. national security. Once President Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was over.

Of course, the lobby claims that it actually did not fight to prevent the naming of Hagel. That is just silly. As someone who worked at AIPAC, in Congress and the State Department for 20 years, I know more than most that, when it comes to the Israel issue, nothing happens without the lobby’s involvement.

AIPAC is, like most professional lobbies, highly protective of its role. Its associates and friends, widely quoted in the media as demanding that Hagel not be appointed, would never have been so aggressive without AIPAC’s go-ahead. That is how it works. It always has.

Frankly, I am surprised that the president went ahead over the lobby’s opposition. I am well-known for my belief that it could not be beaten, although I have always offered the caveat that it would be if a president fought back hard.

Obama did, and Chuck Hagel will almost surely be the next Secretary of Defense.

That is good news but far less significant than the implications for peace. As Dine told me all those years ago, if a president pushes for a peace agreement that advances U.S. interests while not harming Israel’s, he will prevail.

That means that he can insist on an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the lands Israel has occupied since 1967. As long as Israel’s security is not put at risk (and no president would put it at risk), the president will prevail. This is especially the case because an end to the occupation (with security guarantees for Israel and the new state) would advance Israel’s security not damage it.

The lobby will not be able to block a president determined to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms fair to both sides. It is like the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, said: “If you will it, it is no dream.”

It is, as Obama demonstrated with Hagel, just a matter of will.

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The Lobby’s Opposition To Chuck Hagel Is Bad For All Jews

6 Jan

It is hard to believe that the lobby (call it the Israel Lobby, the Jewish Lobby or whatever) is going to oppose President Obama’s choice of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense in the name of Jews.

And don’t kid yourself, when the lobby speaks, it is in the name of all of us.

I worked at AIPAC for four years. I worked in the House and Senate for 20. And at the State Department for three.

And I can tell you that when AIPAC (and its satellites like the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council Of Public Affairs, and the Conference of Presidents Of Major Jewish Organizations) lobby Congress and the White House, it is in the name of Jews. In fact, when AIPAC testifies before Congress, it states that it is speaking for all major Jewish organizations i.e, the Jewish community.

That is why the lobby has the power it does. And the ability to intimidate the government, the media, etc. The lobby claims to speak for the Jews.

And it’s a lie. Most Jews are not represented by the lobby at all. Most Jews are not members of any of the groups that constitute the lobby. Only about half  are even members of synagogues.

The lobby does, however, speak for a few thousand single-issue Israel advocates with lots of money. It is those people Congress is catering to when it passes all those AIPAC-drafted bills bashing the Palestinians, sanctioning Iran, or cheering Israel’s attacks on Gazans. And it is those people, and only those people, that legislators and media hacks are sucking up to when they issue their denunciations of Chuck Hagel for not toeing the line.

None of this is new. This is who the lobby is and how it operates. And, thus far, as damaging as its efforts have been to Israel, to Palestine, and to America’s standing in the world, the reputation of American Jews in general has not been tarnished.

That could change if the lobby, speaking in our name, challenges the right of the President of the United States to choose a Secretary of Defense without the lobby’s interference. How, in God’s name, does any group dedicated to the interests of any foreign country have the right to tell a President who can be in charge of American security?  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee does not, or it should not. Nor should all those other organizations which take their cues from AIPAC and the Netanyahu government.

To put it mildly, the lobby’s opposition to Hagel is utterly inappropriate. And it endangers the standing of Jews in the best homeland we have ever had: the United States.

It needs to stand down. Yes, it has the theoretical “right” to lobby against Hagel. And it has the right to line up GLBT and other groups to oppose Hagel so it does not look like it is just Israel’s cutouts who are trying to block a war hero from leading the Pentagon.

But that “right” should not be exercised unless the lobby and its acolytes and flunkies (particularly in Congress) make clear that they are acting not for the benefit of American Jews or even Israel but to serve a few thousand millionaires and billionaires whose continued campaign contributions they seek.

It  may be the Jewish Lobby, but only in the sense that it is composed of the Jewish organizations (with their tiny memberships) and some Jewish millionaires.  But it does not represent us, the Jews, who are overwhelmingly liberal, dovish on foreign policy issues including Israel, and not particularly Israel-centered.

According to every poll, only a few thousand Jews vote or give money based on Israel. And they certainly are not opposed to Chuck Hagel; in fact, he is the kind of Republican Jews like, in contrast to the evangelical types and right-wingers who rush to the barricades every time AIPAC or Netanyahu sound their trumpet. Unlike the lobby, most American Jews wants peace for Israel, support a Palestinian state and are not, in any way, loyal to Binyamin Netanyahu.  (The last Israeli prime minister they were devoted to was Yitzhak Rabin and it was precisely because he sought peace with the Palestinians).

The bottom line is that the lobby should let the President have the Secretary of Defense he wants. A few thousand rich reactionaries (the Jewish 1%) does not have the right to make all of us look members of Team Netanyahu. The lobby’s opposition to Hagel is bad for Jews. Period. It should back off.

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