Olmert in Washington: A guide to the perplexed

05/24/2006

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by Moderator @ 09:29 PM CST [Link]

Replies: 13 comments

It is not often I get the chance to read an article that so well explains the rationale for Ehud Olmert’s convergence plan as Ami Asseroff’s article, “Olmert in Washington: a Guide to the Perplexed.” in the context of the undisputed challenges Israel faces.

Mr. Asseroff makes a good case for convergence.

Ted Belman of Israpundit, to which Mr. Asseroff makes reference to, also presents his anti-convergence and Israel from the Jordan to sea position, well reasoned and thoughtful as ever.

As with any two well reasoned positions in conflict, one can find flaws or weaknesses in the reasoning of both, once reasoning strays from the certainty of facts to informed opinion and conjecture as to the negative consequences flowing from the other’s opposing view and the positives flowing from their own views.

I am however more inclined to Ted Belman's critique of Mr. Asseroff’s submission and Ted Belman's position for it is closer to my thinking on the matter.

Two very significant facts (though there are a number of others) regarding the Gaza pullout that make a compelling argument against convergence are:

1. The critics of disengagement from Gaza were proven correct for Gaza has become a magnet for radical Islam. Whether they are radical Islamist purists or radical Palestinians even more radicalized by the influx of radicals, Israel is in greater danger today from Palestinian terrorism then ever before.

It takes no genius to figure out that if Israel retreats from the West Bank, the same will happen there as happened in Gaza.

2. Israel cut itself a deep wound in forcing about 8,000 Jews from Gaza and no doubt in spite of Israel’s best intentions far too many of those dislocated Jews have yet to be fully integrated within Israel proper and restored to the life they had.

Israel obviously did not have the ability to deal with the 8,000 Gazans and restore them as they had planned.

If they cannot do it with 8,000, how are they going to do it with 30 thousand or more?

Israel should have learned already that Israel suffered far worse than a paper cut by removing the Gazan Jews.

Not only would trying to uproot 30 thousand plus Jews from the West Bank be analogous to cutting itself right to the bone, some would say Israel would be severing its own limbs.

Posted by Bill Narvey @ 05/25/2006 06:44 PM CST

"Gaza has become a magnet for radical Islam"
The Hamas has been dominant in Gaza for some time now, well before the withdrawl. The withdrawl did strengthen the Hamas, but not by much.They were doing well before, and would certainly have continued doing well had Israel remained. There is nosignifican influx of foreign Islamic radicals into Gaza. The most dangerous brand is the homegrown. The Hizbulla's involvement has also occured prior to withdrawl.

"Israel is in greater danger today from Palestinian terrorism then ever before."
Hardly. Prior to the withdrawl Palestinians used to attack Israeli convoys (military and civilians) inside Gaza, attack border passes, try to sneak into Israel, and fire kassam missles at the settlements. Israel used to respond by bombing and by sending forces into Palestinian areas of Gaza. Now they can't attack convoys, but the rest is the same except that now they fire the missles into the Negev. Israel's tools to handle the situation remain the same. There is no increase in the danger to Israel. It would have been nice had the Palestinians stopped terrorism after withdrawl, but both those who supported withdrawl (without negotiations) and those who wanted to stay in Gaza worked under the assumption that there is no partner and that terrorism will continue. The withdrawl wasnever sold as a solution to terrorism nor was being in Gaza an effective tool against it.

"Israel cut itself a deep wound in forcing about 8,000 Jews from Gaza"
The withdrawl was certainly traumatic to the settlers but not to Israel as a whole,despite the settlers attempts to create manufacture trauma.

"Israel obviously did not have the ability to deal with the 8,000 Gazans and restore them as they had planned"
Do not confuse inability with ineptitude. many more than 8000 people have emigrated and emigrate to Israel under more difficult circumstances and have been integrated, even when Israel's governments were not doing all they could. How nice it would be if Israel did its best effort instead of being inept in this regard."

Posted by Micha @ 05/26/2006 04:01 AM CST

It seems to me there are several options:

1) To remain in the west bank the way the right wing wants and continue ruling over the Palestinians directly or indirectly.
This view has two flaws:
a. The military, diplomatic, economic, and moral harm caused to Israel by continued control of the belligirent Palestinians.
b. The undermining of Israel's democracy or its Zionism (i.e. Jewish statehood) or both.
The supporters have the occupation have failed to offer solutions to these major issues so far.
Another question is whether people who oppose the occupation in principlal should support its continuation in practice if peaceful negotiated withdrawl is not an option? This has been the view in the left in the 70's I think. Its flaw is obvious, the right has usedthe time to entrench Israel deeper inside the west bank, thus undermining its democracy and possibly its very existence.

2) To unilateraly withdraw on the assumption that although the lines of withdrawl willnot be recognized as a border internationaly, Israel's situation will be unchanged or even improved with regard to the threat to its democracy/zionism, its ability to deal with terrorism militarily, and its diplomatic and economic condition. In short, that there will be more stability than now. Supporters of full withdrawl and peace might reason that such withdrawl could be a stepping stone to future negotiations with a Palestinian state if and when it gets its act together.
The problems are:
a. To what degree can Israel disentangle itself from the West Bank unilateraly? In Gaza even full withdrawl was not enough. More so in the West Bank where Israel plans to still control an unknown quantity of the West Bank, including presumably all the borders. This extent of Israel's continued entanglement and land kept in the West Bank affects its legitimacy and diplomatic position.
b. To what degree will Israel be able to pay the price in settlement evacuation considering the Palestinians wil give nothing in return.
c. It is impossible to predict how stable or unstable the west bank will be. If we have learned anything from Oslo it's that the Palestinians don't always act in their own best interest. If terrorism increases Israel will have to take unknown military actions. Since without a full withdrawl and negotiated peace Israel will not have full legitimacy, its ability to act against terrorism will be limited, and the actions will not always be considered legitimate. Furthermore, Palestinian terrorism will most likely make Israelis even more apprehensive towards any idea of peace and further withdrawl to the 67 borders.
d. On the otherhand if stability is somehow acheived (temporarily no doubt), than Israelis might be reluctant to consider future peace and withdrawl to the 67 borders. This can eventually lead to a resurgence of the conflict and harm to Israel's legitimacy if it is perceived that unilateral withdrawl has been used as an excuse to continue the occupation of parts of the West Bank.
e. I'm not certain whether the choice of unilateral withdrawl is not partially motivated by the wish to keep hold of part of the occupation and avoid ngotiating with the Palestinians on a deal involving greater concessions (67 borders).
In short, unilateral withdrawl is not a solution as much as delaying dealing with the problems. Is it better to delay like this than by continued occupation? Will the Israel public think so? (after all the occupation has been a delaying policy going for 39 years).

3) Withdrawl followed by international force creating stability in the west bank.
The problem is that I'm not sure an international force will be willing or able to deal with Palestinian terrorism better than Israel or the Palestinians unless the Palestinians themselves decide to stop, which is unlikely unless or even if negotiations ensue.

4) Agreeing to negotiate with Abu Mazen despite the fact that he will not give up the right of return prior to negotiations and willnot dismantle terrorist organizations and some level of terrorism is likely to continue. The assumption here is that peace can be reached with Abu Mazen (without the right of return) if Israel itself is willing to offer withdrawl to the 67 borders (or equivalent), and that after such peace is reached the Palestinians will accept it and Abu Mazen will then be able to build a non terroristic Palestinian state next to Israel.
The flaws here are:
a. Israel atthe moment is unwilling to offer such a deal.
b. The Israeligovernment will not have internal support for such negotiations, especially if terrorism continues.
c. It is not certain Abu Mazen is able or willing to give up on the right of return or that such a deal will be accepted by the Palestinians.
d. Itis uncertain whether Abu Mazen will be able to establish a peaceful state and impose his will on the different factions after peace is acheived.

All options are difficult, risky and full of potential problems. Which is the better choice? Which is the likely one to occur? How can one be promoted over the other? I'm not sure.

Posted by Micha @ 05/26/2006 04:58 AM CST

I'm not familiar with "Ted Belman" or "Israpundit". Can Bill Narvey enlighten us about this "Jordan to the Sea" position?

As far as I can see, for this to work as a Zionist solution, either the Palestinians would have to be ethnically cleansed from the entire area or they would have to remain in situ without democratic rights.

Which is he proposing? The Serbian or South African model?

Posted by Chris @ 05/26/2006 02:35 PM CST

Chris,

I suggest you google Israpundit. It is a terrific weblog site that posts excellent articles and draws many insightful and well stated comments and opinions. You should add it to your favorites for easy acceess.

Ted Belman is the editor of Israpundit and he posts a number of his own articles to his blog as well as providing commentary in respect of other's articles that he posts.

It is well worth the time to check it out.

Posted by Bill Narvey @ 05/27/2006 02:17 AM CST

Micah,

To respond to your counter points to my comments:

1. I have to rely on news reports from sources I consider credible. My comment that Gaza is becoming a magnet for radicals and so too will the West Bank is based on my understanding of those reports.

1. We will have to agree to disagree as to whether the pullout from Gaza made the Palestinians more of a threat to Israel than before. One thing we can agree on I think is that the pullout from Gaza did not make the Palestinians any less of a threat to Israelis, which was one of the primary objectives Sharon had.

To add to that both Egypt and Jordan have been impacted by the radicalism, be it the Palestinian or radicals influxing within Gaza and within the West Bank.

3. If you want to call Israel's failure to deal with the 8,000 Gazans torn from their homes ineptitude as opposed to and inability, have it your way. The net result is the same. If they are inept handling 8,000 Gazans being removed from their homes, what hope does Israel have in handling the 30 thousand plus Israelis that the convergence plan requires be removed from disbanded settlements?

As for your critique of Ami Isseroff's submission, you have conclude by confessing your uncertainty whether convergence or holding fast is the way to go, because either option is fraught with risks.

Of course any option carries with it risks, however fence sitting does not aid the debate and it certainly does not aid the Israeli government to be paralyzed by indecision.

Take a position and fight for your view to prevail!

In my view, Olmert's convergence plan gets Israel no further ahead and probably puts it even more behind the eight ball.

2.

Posted by Bill Narvey @ 05/27/2006 04:16 AM CST

"1. I have to rely on news reports from sources I consider credible. My comment that Gaza is becoming a magnet for radicals and so too will the West Bank is based on my understanding of those reports."

The phrase "becoming a magnet" sound more like a rhetorical device that an informed claim. If your sources are right wing they have an interest to create a certain image.

"both Egypt and Jordan have been impacted by the radicalism" -- the whole muslim world is being imapcted by radicalism for quite some time for internal reasons. RadicalIslamis does not come frooutside. I hope you don't suggest Israel conquers Jordan and Egypt to stop Islamic radicalism.

"1. We will have to agree to disagree as to whether the pullout from Gaza made the Palestinians more of a threat to Israel than before. One thing we can agree on I think is that the pullout from Gaza did not make the Palestinians any less of a threat to Israelis, which was one of the primary objectives Sharon had."

Sharon's stated objective was not to reduce terrorism. I've given an account of the military situation before an after the withdrawl. Under these circumstances we can see that the situation has improved with regard to attacks against soldiers and settlers, but not for people living next to Gaza inside Israel. None has died as of yet, but the Kassam attacks must be dealt with in some way. If all other options failed a military option should not be excluded, but the diplomatic option should be explored. In any case the military options of Israel remain unchangedsince before the withdrawl. the settlements did not protect Israel from kassams, except by providing an alternative target.

"3. If you want to call Israel's failure to deal with the 8,000 Gazans torn from their homes ineptitude as opposed to and inability, have it your way. The net result is the same. If they are inept handling 8,000 Gazans being removed from their homes, what hope does Israel have in handling the 30 thousand plus Israelis that the convergence plan requires be removed from disbanded settlements?"

As I said, Israel took in larger quantities of immigrants under more difficult circumstances. The settlers have an interest to create trauma for themselves and for Israel. They have succeeded only with the first.

If youcannot guess my opinions based on what I've written then I have succeeded. I believe in laying down the issues in all their complexity, not denying the difficulty of the dilemmas involved in these decisions.

I do have a position and have fought for it. But I believe the discussion should be dialectic.

Here is one hint. The right wing option of continued occupation is not a solution.

I do not believe an international force willbe useful without negotiations for peace.

I also believe that Israel should make a credible offer to the Palestinians based on the 67 borders (similar to Geneva).

Í believe Israel should be willing to negotiate with the Hamas, and to see if we can get some real ceasefire. The Hamas may be open to something like that.

Ordinarily I would say that we should negotiate with Abbasm despite his weakness. But I'm not certain if the risks of failed negotiations will not be worse. I'm also not certain how far the Israel government or public will be willing to go. What they want, and not what I want is after all the important factor.'

Considering that unilateral withdrawl is the direction Israel seems to be going, and unilateral withdrawl isinsufficient, the question is whether its implimintation will cause more harm than good. I tend to think that if no other alternative is offered because of the political reality, withdrawl is better than continued occupation. But at this stage it is more important to speak of the flaws than of the positive side. So long as there is option to improve the given choices.

I'd like to hear what Ami thinks.

The right in Israel has always avoided making the choices while sinking deeper into the territories without dealing with the democratic/demographic question.

Posted by Micha @ 05/27/2006 07:43 PM CST

Bill, I asked a simple question. Please answer it. Does the "Israel from Jordan to the Sea" proposal you support involve expelling or disenfranchising Palestinians? Logically it has to be one or the other. I had a quick look at Israpundit, but they are not upfront about their "programme".

Micha, as far as I can see the Right in Israel has avoided nothing except being upfront about their real agenda, which has always been to achieve the "Jordan to the Sea" proposal above. Continued settlement and encroachment is part of the programme; you see the settlements as an problem while others see them as an opportunity.

Posted by Chris @ 05/28/2006 02:37 PM CST

I checked Israpudit again and found this:-

"Israel should annex the West Bank and Gaza, and expel the two-legged locusts."

I guess that just about sums it up. Nice plan. Nice people.

Posted by Chris @ 05/28/2006 03:01 PM CST

Chris, it would have been convenient if all right wing israelis or all Israelis were racists. But the way the occupation worked was not by being upfront as you think. It worked by avoiding the discussion of the fact that the Palestinians did not have Israeli citizenship. On the one hand the moderate right-wing never annexed the territories, which means that legally it was not part of Israel. But on the other hand for Israelis the distinction between the territories and regular democratic Israel was obfuscated completely. There was no border, no seperate designation on maps, Jews and Arabs lived and worked on both sides, and seemed content. Any discussion of withdrawl was not in the context of civil rights but in the context of land for peace (like with Egypt), peace offers rejected by the arabs, security and terrorism, and the question of the historical connection between Jews and the land of Israel in general. Even you could not help but slip into that pointless discussion. many Israelis were not realy aware that the the Arabs in the territories had no citizenship, or that there was anything wrong except the fact that the arabs did not like us and used terrorism against us often in order to remove the Jews from all of Israel/Palestine. There were no seperate water fountains, or seperate toilates. Even the peace camp was caught in this discussion, because they were talking about peace, which meant that the discussion revolved about the willingness of the Palestinians to make peace instead of their civic status. Furthermore, there was an element of delay: peace negotiations, waiting for the Palestinians to accept Israel, improved security and so forth. The right also floated not serious alternatives to withdrawl, unlikely to be accepted.

The discussion was never upfront. Even now it is not.
But ironically, the collapse of the peace process has narrowed the discussion for the first time. as a result more Israelis see withdrawl as a necessary alternative than before, when the discussion of withdrawl was reserved only for those seemingly blind to the difficulties of peace. the security problems and terror, or the connection of Jews to the Land of Israel.

Posted by Micha @ 05/29/2006 01:15 AM CST

I should add that I'm not denying that Israelis embraced their ignorance, and were happy not to deal with the question of the citizenship of the Palestinians. But still it was a game of obfuscation. Never was there an upfront discussion on this issue, the Israelis never made a clear choice on the subject. They never chose a system of second class citizenship or segregation. Not choosing was their choice. the de facto results were he same.

Posted by Micha @ 05/29/2006 02:00 AM CST

Hi Micha

I think you misread my comment, which I probably phrased with insufficient clarity. My comment was precisely that the Israeli right had avoided being upfront.

There is clearly a significant group of people, dating back to before the establishment of Israel, who want to see a Jewish state from the Jordan to the sea, and the settlements are surely a part of their plan. What may be at issue is the extent to which Labour have colluded in this or turned a blind eye. Whether the discussion is about land-for-peace or two-states, building settlements on occupied land can only really be part of a project of colonisation - particularly after the settlements in the Sinai were demolished this must have been clear.

So my argument was that the Right have been implementing a moreorless conscious plan which the centre and some of the left have chosen to ignore, and the Right have therefore set the agenda over the past 40 years or so, leading to the current situation.

I may have missed a point or two you were making regarding the citizenship issue; please clarify if so.

Posted by Chris @ 05/30/2006 03:20 PM CST

Chris, if the avarage Israeli did not understand the difference between the state of israel and the occupied territories, than building settlements in the territories was as much colonization as building in Tel-Aviv.

Israelis understood that the Arabs wanted land in exchange for peace, and were willing to demolish settlements in Sinai to accoplish peace with the Egyptians. But consider the payment of a similar price in the territories not worth while either because they did not believe peace was offered or possible, or because they didn't think it was worth it (or both). One of the reasons for building the settlements was to prevent future withdrawl for peace, which might have been considered by the more pragmatic elements in Israeli society: because in Israel then the difference between the moderate right and left was that the left was pragmatic and the right more committed to national integrity of the land of Israel. It was never about conquest or expansion or colonization. In that sense it was a little bit like Algeria which was perceived as part of France rather than as a distant colonial possession. In any case, both sides rarely thought about it in terms of controlling a Palestinian population without equal civic rights, until later. And if and when they did they avoided thinking about it. Dan Meridor, former Likud member and current supporter of withdrawl says that Begin was concerned that Israel will be like Rhodezia (spl?). But it was only in the late 90's and early 2000's that he and Olmert started thinking that withdrawl was necessary. Strange.

Posted by Micha @ 05/30/2006 04:13 PM CST

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