Daniel Lubetzky

Uri Avnery is in his 80s.  The wisdom of his years – and his fascinating journey – shows in the articles below, but he retains a youthful optimism and a crisp analytical mind that are much needed in today’s world.

Below are two very solid articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the latter being extraordinarily depressing but obligatory reading.  For those who don’t know Uri Avnery, he is very much a man from the left, but he is intellectually rigorous always and thus worthwhile reading even (and particularly) for those from opposite sides of the spectrum.  

Uri Avnery

May 8, 2010.

A Fantasy

I ADMIRE Prof. John Mearsheimer. His rigorous logic. His lucid presentation. His rare moral courage.

I was very honored to host him and his colleague, Prof. Stephen Walt, in Tel Aviv, after their book about the Israel lobby in the US provoked a furor.

And I don’t agree with his conclusions.

A FEW days ago, Prof. Mearsheimer delivered an impressive lecture in Washington DC. He presented a profound analysis of the chances of Israel surviving in the long term. Every Israeli who is concerned about the future of his state should grapple with this analysis.

The professor himself sums up his conclusions as follows:

“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.”

WHY DOES the professor believe that the two-state solution has become a fantasy? Because, in his opinion, most Israelis are not ready to make the “sacrifices” necessary for its implementation. The 480 thousand settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have immense power. Many of them will offer armed resistance to any solution. Binyamin Netanyahu is not prepared to accept a Palestinian state. The Israeli public has shifted sharply to the right. No effective pro-peace party exists in Israel now. No leader of stature, who would be able to remove the settlers, can be seen. And most importantly: “Zionism’s core beliefs are deeply hostile to the very notion of a Palestinian state.”

No salvation will come from Barack Obama. The immensely powerful pro-Israel lobby will crush any attempt of his to exert pressure on Israel. Obama has already capitulated to Netanyahu, and he will continue to do so in the future.

The professor does not hide his opinion that the two-state solution is by far the best. But he believes that it is “dead”.  Greater Israel, ruling over all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, already exists. It is an apartheid state that will steadily become more consolidated and more brutal – until its collapse.

THIS IS a frightening prognosis. It is also very logical. If current developments continue in a straight line, this is exactly what will happen.

But I do not believe in straight lines. There are very few straight lines in nature, and there are no straight lines in the life of nations and states.

In the 86 years of my life, innumerable unforeseen things have happened, and innumerable expected things have not come about. The fate of nations is governed by unexpected factors. They are shaped by human beings, who are by nature unpredictable creatures.

Who foresaw in 1928 that Adolf Hitler would come to power in Germany? Who in 1941 foresaw that the Red Army would stop the invincible Wehrmacht? Who in 1939 foresaw the Holocaust? Who in 1945 foresaw the creation of the State of Israel? Who in 1989 foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union? Who foresaw, the day before it happened, the fall of the Berlin wall? Who foresaw the Khomeini revolution? Who foresaw the election of a black US president?

Of course, one cannot build plans on the unexpected. But it should be taken into account. It is irrational to discount the irrational.

I do not accept the professor’s judgment that “most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state.” As an Israeli living and fighting in Israel, I am convinced that the great majority of Israelis are ready to accept the necessary conditions, which are well-know to all: a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, the 1967 borders with minimal land swaps, a mutually acceptable solution for the refugee problem.

The real problem is that most Israelis do not believe that peace is possible. Dozens of years of propaganda have convinced them that “we have no partner for peace”. Events on the ground (as seen through Israeli eyes) have confirmed this view. If this perception is dissolved, everything is possible.

In this, President Obama could play a big role. I believe that this is his real mission: to prove that it is possible. That there is a partner out there. That there is a guarantee for the security of Israel. And – yes – that the alternative is frightening.

CAN THE settlements be removed? Will there ever be an Israeli government that will have the guts to do so? Where is the leader who will undertake this Herculean task?

The professor is right that “there is nobody with that kind of standing in Israeli politics today.” And that “there is no sizable pro-peace party or movement.”

Yet history shows that exceptional leaders often appear when they are needed. I have seen in my own lifetime a failed and generally detested politician called Winston Churchill become a national hero. And a reactionary general called Charles de Gaulle liberate Algeria. And a grey communist apparatchik called Mikhail Gorbachev dismantle a huge empire without a drop of blood being shed. And the election of a guy called Barack Obama.

I have also seen a brutal general called Ariel Sharon, the father of the settlements, destroying a series of settlements. His intentions may be debatable, but the facts cannot be disputed: he challenged the settlers’ movement – which Prof. Mearsheimer describes in all its fearful menace – and won easily. In face of the total opposition of the settlers and their allies, he evacuated some twenty settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Not a single military unit mutinied. Not a single person was killed or seriously injured.

Sure, there is a quantitative and qualitative difference between Sharon’s “separation” and that task in front of us. But it is a big mistake to view the “settlers” as a monolithic structure. They are split into several different sectors – the inhabitants of the East Jerusalem neighborhoods do not resemble the West Bank settlers, the buyers of cheap apartments in Ariel and Ma’aleh-Adumim do not resemble the zealots of Yitzhar and Tapuach, the Orthodox in Modi’in-Illit and Immanuel do not resemble the “Youth of the Hills”.     

If a peace agreement is achieved, it will be necessary to approach the evacuation job with determination, but also with finesse. For the inhabitants of the East Jerusalem neighborhoods, a solution will be found in the framework of the agreement about Jerusalem. A large number of settlers near the Green Line will remain where they are in the framework of a fair exchange of territory. Another large part will return home, if they know that apartments are ready and waiting for them in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. For some of them there may be a possibility to find an accommodation with the Palestinian government. In the end, the hard core of Messianic settlers will not give up easily. They may use arms. But a strong leader will stand the test, if the great majority of the Israeli public support the peace agreement.

THE TWO-STATE solution is not the best solution. It is the only solution.

The alternative is not a democratic, secular bi-national state, because such a state will not come into being. Neither people wants it.

As the professor rightly maintains, in the absence of peace, Israel will rule from the sea to the river. The present situation will go on and become worse: the sovereign State of Israel holding on to the occupied territories.

Except for a tiny group of dreamers, who can be gathered in a medium-sized room, there are no Israelis who dream of living in a bi-national state, in which the Arabs constitute the majority. If such a state came into being, Israeli Jews would just emigrate. But it is much more plausible that the reverse would happen: the Palestinians would emigrate long before that.

Ethnic cleansing does not have to take the form of a dramatic expulsion, as in 1948. It can take place quietly, in a creeping process, when more and more Palestinians simply give up. That is the great dream of the settlers and their partners: to make life for the Palestinians so miserable that they take their families and leave.

Either way, life in this country will turn into hell. Not for one year, but for dozens of years. Both sides will be violent. The idea of Palestinian “non-violent resistance” is a pipe-dream. The professor’s hope that in the putative bi-national state, the Palestinians would not treat the Jews  as the Jews are treating them now has been disproved by the Jews themselves – the persecution they have suffered throughout the ages has not inoculated them against becoming persecutors themselves.

THERE IS a gap in the professor’s analysis: he does not explain how the violent Israeli apartheid state will “develop” into an ideal bi-national state. In his opinion, this will come about “eventually”, after “some years”. How many”? And how?

OK, there will be pressures. World public opinion will turn against Israel. The Jews in the Diaspora will distance themselves. But how will all this bring about a bi-national state?

Any comparison with South Africa is unsound. There is no real similarity between the situation that prevailed there and the situation that exists – or will exist in the future – here. Except for some methods of persecution, all the circumstances, in all fields, are vastly different.

(To mention just one: the apartheid regime was finally brought down not by international pressure, but by the massive and crippling strikes of the black work force. In this country, the occupation authorities do everything to prevent Palestinians from coming to work in Israel.)

In the end, it is a matter of logic: if international pressure does not succeed in convincing the Israelis to accept the two-state solution, which does no harm to their national identity, how will it compel them to give up everything they have – their state, their identity, their culture, their economy, all they have built in a huge endeavor of 120 years?

Is it not much more plausible to assume that long before their state collapses under all the pressures, Israelis would embrace the two-state solution?

I COMPLETELY agree with the professor: the main obstacle to peace is psychological. What is needed is a profound change of perceptions, before the Israeli public can be brought to recognize reality and accept peace, with all it entails.

That is the main task facing the Israeli peace camp: to change the basic perceptions of the public. I am certain that this is possible. We have already traveled a long road from the days of “There are no Palestinians!” and “Jerusalem united for all eternity!”. Professor Mearsheimer’s analysis may well contribute to this process.

An apartheid state or a bi-national state? Neither. But the free State of Palestine side by side with the free State of Israel, in the common homeland.

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SECOND ARTICLE

Uri Avnery

22.5.10

                                    Hallelujah, the World is Against Us!

A LOCAL TV station told us this week about a group of Israelis who adhere to conspiracy theories.

They believe that George W. Bush planned the destruction of the Twin Towers in order to further his wicked aims. They believe that the big pharmaceutical corporations spread the swine flue virus in order to sell their worthless vaccines. They believe that Barack Obama is a secret agent of the military-industrial complex. They believe that fluoride is put into drinking water to sterilize men, in order to reduce mankind by exactly two billion. And so on.

I wonder that they have not yet uncovered the most nefarious conspiracy of all: the one perpetrated by the gang of anti-Semites who have taken control of the government of Israel and are using it to destroy the Jewish State.

PROOF? NOTHING easier. One has only to read the papers.

The Foreign Minister, for example. Who but a diabolic anti-Semite could have appointed Avigdor Lieberman, of all people, to this post? The job of a foreign minister is to make friends and convince world opinion that we are right. Lieberman is working hard and skillfully to get Israel hated by one and all.

Or the Minister of the Interior. He works from morning to night to shock human rights defenders and supply ammunition to the worst enemies of Israel. Recently, he prevented two babies from entering Israel because their father is gay. He prevents women from joining their husbands in Israel. He deports children of foreign workers, who are building the state.

Or the Chief of Staff. He persuaded the government to boycott the UN commission for the investigation of the “Cast Lead” operation, thus abandoning the field to the accusers of the IDF. And since the publication of its report, he has been orchestrating a worldwide defamation campaign against the Jewish Zionist judge, Richard Goldstone.

Now the IDF has announced its determination to block the flotilla that plans to bring symbolic supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip. That will ensure live TV coverage, with the whole world following the small ships and having their attention drawn to the vicious blockade imposed for years upon a million and a half human beings. The dream of every Israel-hater.

The conspiracy reached its climax this week, when Professor Noam Chomsky was denied entry into the West Bank.

THIS AFFAIR has no credible explanation except a vicious anti-Semitic plot.

In the beginning I thought that it was just the usual mixture of ignorance and folly. But I have come to the conclusion that it can’t be so. Even in our present government, stupidity cannot have reached such proportions.

Briefly, this is what happened: the 81-year old professor arrived at the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River on his way from Amman to Birzeit University near Ramallah, where he was to deliver two lectures about US policy. The Israeli authorities of course knew well in advance about his coming. A young official asked him some questions, contacted his superiors at the Interior Ministry, returned to ask some more questions, contacted his superiors again, and then stamped his passport with the words: “Entry Denied”.

And what were the questions? Why he does not lecture at an Israeli university. And why he has no Israeli passport.

The professor returned to Amman and delivered his lectures by video link. The incident was widely publicized all over the world, especially in the US. The Interior Ministry apologized half-heartedly, stating that the matter was not under its jurisdiction, that it was the responsibility of the military Coordinator for the (Occupied) Territories.

That is, of course, a mendacious excuse, since the ministry itself has recently denied entry to several personalities who profess sympathy with the Palestinians, including the most popular clown in Spain.

A PERSONAL memory of mine: a dozen years ago I took part in a heated public debate in London with Edward Said, the late Palestinian professor. He happened to mention that his friend, Noam Chomsky, was about to deliver a lecture at a local university.

I hastened there and saw the building surrounded by a dense crowd of young men and women. With great difficulty I pushed my way to the stairs which led up to the lecture hall, but was stopped by the ushers. I pleaded in vain that I was a friend of the lecturer and that I had come all the way from Israel just to hear him. They told me that even a needle could not be squeezed in. Such was his popularity even then.

Noam Chomsky is, perhaps, the most in-demand intellectual on earth. His reputation goes way beyond his academic specialty – linguistics – where he is considered a genius. He is the guru of millions around the planet. The world media treat him as a cerebral celebrity.

If so, what could have induced the Ministers of the Interior and/or Defense to hold this man for four hours and then send him back where he came from? Abysmal folly? Malice? Vengefulness? All of these? Or perhaps something else?

THIS AFFAIR has many wide-ranging implications.

First of all: it is a provocation against the Palestinian Authority, with whom Binyamin Netanyahu wants to have direct peace negotiations – or so he says. It’s like spitting in their face.

Chomsky arrived as a guest of Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian leader who espouses non-violence and human rights. He came to give lectures at a Palestinian university.

How does that concern Israel? What Chutzpa is it to prevent Palestinian students from hearing a lecturer of their choosing?

And what does it tell us about Netanyahu’s perorations about “Two States for Two Peoples”? What kind of a Palestinian state is this supposed to be, if Israel can decide who is allowed to enter, and who not? Especially in light of the Israeli demand to control all the border crossing of the new state!

SECOND, ALL over the world a campaign is in full swing to boycott all Israeli universities. Not only the self-styled “University Institute” at the Ariel settlement, and not only Bar-Ilan University, which helped to set it up. All of them.

Several associations of academics in the UK and other countries have adopted resolutions to impose this boycott, and other groups oppose it. It is an ongoing battle.

The opponents of the boycott raise the flag of academic freedom. Where shall we be if we boycott researchers and thinkers because of their country of residence or opinions? The Italian writer Umberto Eco has written his colleagues an emotional letter against the boycott. I, too, oppose it.  

And here comes the government of Israel and pulls the rug out from under our feet. No one suggests that Chomsky supports terrorism or is coming to spy. His entry was denied solely because of his views. This means that academic freedom is good only if it serves those who praise Israel, but is worth no more than a garlic’s skin (as we say in Hebrew) when it is used by somebody who objects to the policies of the Israeli government.

That is a direct help for the boycotteers. The more so since not a single Israel university or group of academics has raised its voice in protest.

THE ASSERTION that Chomsky is an enemy of Israel is ludicrous.

He bears an eminently Hebrew first name, and so does his daughter, Aviva, who accompanied him.

I met him for the first time in the 60s, when I visited him in his cramped quarters at MIT, one of the most respected academic institutions in the US and the world.

He spoke with some nostalgia about the kibbutz (Hazorea, of the leftist Zionist Hashomer Hatzair movement), where he had lived for a year in his youth. We exchanged opinions and agreed that the two-state idea was the only practical solution.

His first name was given to him by his parents, who were born in the Russian empire and emigrated to the US in their youth. The mother tongue of both was Yiddish, but they devoted their home to Hebrew culture, and Noam spoke Hebrew from early childhood. In the mental world of his youth, socialism and anarchism were mixed with Zionism. His doctoral thesis was about the Hebrew language.

I have been following his statements ever since. I never found any opposition to the existence of Israel. What I did find was sharp criticism of the Israeli government’s policies – the same criticism levied by the Israeli peace forces. But he is far more critical of the successive US administrations, whose policies he considers to be the mother of all evils.

When the two professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published their revolutionary expose supporting the claim that Israel controls US policy through the Israel lobby, Chomsky contradicted them and argued that the reverse was true: that it is the US which exploits Israel for its imperialist designs, contrary to real Israeli interests.

As for myself, I believe that both theses are right. Chomsky’s assertion may be illustrated by the present American veto on a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, as well as the American intervention that prevents the Gilad Shalit prisoners’ swap.

So why, for God’s sake, was this man denied entry into the country?  

I HAVE a theory which would explain everything.

For many centuries, the Jews were persecuted in Christian Europe. Anti-Semitism turned their life into hell. They fell victim to pogroms, mass expulsions, confinement in ghettos, oppressive edicts and discriminatory laws. In the course of time, they developed mental and practical defense mechanisms, methods of survival and routes of escape.

Since the Holocaust, the situation has changed radically. In the US the Jews now live in a paradise unparalleled since the Golden Age in Muslim Spain. When the State of Israel came into being, it attracted world-wide admiration and sympathy.

That was wonderful, but below the surface of the national consciousness – if one may generalize – a sense of unease, of disorientation, set in. The tried and trusted defense mechanisms, which had given the Jews a feeling of orientation and awareness of lurking dangers, disintegrated. They felt that something was out of order, that the well-known road signs were not working anymore. When the Gentiles laud the Jews or are ready to make alliances with them, that is suspicious. Clearly, something sinister must be behind it. Things are not as we knew them. That’s frightening.

Since then, we have been working feverishly to bring the situation back to normal. Without being conscious of it, we do what we can to be hated again, to feel at home, on familiar ground.

If there is a conspiracy, it is a conspiracy of ourselves against ourselves. We shall not rest until the world is anti-Semitic again, and we know how to behave.

As the jolly song goes: “The entire world is against us, but what the hell…”