It will be difficult for those who do not know the history of Israel’s origins to understand why, but within the twisted logic of Hamas’s world view, this attack on Israel is very cunning, even ingenious. The principles underpinning Hamas’s tactics show that they have made a close study of their enemy. They comprehend and know precisely how to exploit the most basic ideals at the heart of Israeli politics and society.
What are these ideals? They are rooted in the Holocaust, which was the final demonic apotheosis of all the forces that the Zionist movement had been created to defeat. During the Holocaust the Nazis did not merely kill Jews; they desecrated and degraded Jewish bodies so as to totally dehumanize them. For the Nazis a Jew was not even deserving of the respect one would give an animal. One was as free to dig in the mouth of a murdered Jewish child for gold or silver as one was to do so in a pile of dirt.
When most mainstream Zionists (among whom I count myself) call Israel a “Jewish state,” they do not mean that it is one ruled by Jewish law or that works to fulfill Jewish traditions (most of the founding leaders of Zionism, like David Ben Gurion, were atheists). Rather, what makes Israel “Jewish” is that it is a nation fundamentally committed to the principle that Jews are and must be treated as human beings. “Never again” does not merely mean that Israel stands against genocide. It declares that Israel will not allow any government, including its own, to treat any Jew with less than the full dignity of a person. Other governments may be free to treat their soldiers or citizens as dispensable. Israel is not.
Hamas knows this, and has acted accordingly. The cruel logic of their attack is clear: blanket Israel with enough rockets to overwhelm the Iron Dome defensive system, so as to inflict enough casualties to demand a military response. At the same time, take so many hostages as human shields that a response is impossible, given Israel’s commitment to absolute respect for the lives and dignity of Jews.
Israel cannot win this war. Whatever happens, whatever Israeli leaders do, however much intelligence and discipline they bring to bear on this crisis, the dilemma cannot be un-puzzled. The choices that face Israeli leaders are impossible, none of their options can bring anything but pain. Israel was already divided and in turmoil before Friday’s atrocities, whenever the smoke clears and the fighting is done that division and turmoil will be even worse.
But Hamas cannot win this war either. Israel’s critics, in fashioning apologies for Hamas’s tactics, will focus on the very just grievances of the Palestinian people. The problem with such arguments, of course, is that none of the grievances of the Palestinian people can possibly be redressed by this obscenity. Yes, Israel’s obstruction of Palestinian sovereignty is heinous, and yes, this attack raises the price of that obstruction, but it is a price that in the short term will be paid by the Palestinian people themselves, in suffering and death. There are many ways that one might fight the injustice of Israel’s policies. Hamas has chosen means that are deliberately calculated to exacerbate injustice and undermine any hope of peace.
The lesson of this tragedy is clear: there is no victory but PEACE. The dignity and humanity of one group of people cannot be affirmed by denying the dignity and humanity of any other. Any group which deliberately inflicts death and suffering on others wins nothing for its pains but more death and suffering. The only sustainable future in Israel-Palestine is one in which Jews and Arabs live together as equals. There are many different ways to arrive at that goal (two states, one state, or some union of joined sovereignties), but anyone who is not working toward the end of peace and shared prosperity is digging a hole in which they themselves are sure to be buried. Both sides have committed terrible cruelties that undermine trust and make peace seem impossible. But the struggle for peace is the only fight that can be won.
7 comments:
I do not quite agree with you on all of this. I think it unlikely that any government worth its salt would allow 1,000 of its citizens to be massacred without a massive overwhelming response - assuming that the source of the violence can be located. And, any government of any democratic state worth its salt would value its citizens and visitors enough to be in a dilemma due to the taking of hostages, as has occurred in the Israeli crisis. That is most definitely not something particular to Jews.
So far as winning, that depends on what winning means. If winning means removing for a substantial period of time the ability of Palestinian Arabs to commit large scale massacres, that is definitely possible, although the cost of doing so would be very great in lost lives, including potentially loss of some or all of the hostages. If winning means eliminating Hamas as the government of Gaza, that is also possible but, again, at a very substantial cost in lives.
So far as wanting peace, that ought be everyone's goal. I would think that the existence of a large political party like Hamas teaches that advocating for one state is a moral mistake of the first order.
So far as two states, leaving aside Israeli intentions for this discussion – and, in fact, there are real problems on that side – the fact is that there is no reason to think that any large Palestinian party – including even, most importantly, the PLO and the now PLO dominated PA - has ever wanted peace. Had they wanted it, at some point since 1948, they might have acted on offers. There was, at one point, lip service from Arafat's PLO but, truth be said, when all of his publicly stated red lines were accepted by the Israelis, he walked away, as reported by President Clinton. (I might add: the Saudi embassy in Washington's website had an article on its website during the aughts - and, for all I know, it may still be there - about the then Ambassador. In the article, he indicates unequivocally that all of the Palestinian Arab - i.e., the PLO's - publicly stated red lines were met by the Israelis, that Arafat simply walked away when there was a settlement effectively reached, lied about what had occurred and started a useless and bloody uprising.) While some have claimed that the Israeli offers were not generous enough or that the timing was not right, facts are facts.
As for Hamas, it wants Israel destroyed without apparent concern of the cost in lives. That is seen as a religious imperative, so that such allows them to justify staggering losses on their side. Hamas unfortunately represents the views of a substantial portion of Palestinian Arabs. That makes resolving the dispute impossible, from a moral perspective, until such religious formula for Palestinian Arabs fades away.
I most certainly want the dispute resolved. I think two states make the most logical sense, but that assumes such would resolve the dispute. Such seems exceedingly unlikely in our lifetimes. So, my desire is merely my hope and not something that, at this point, is realistic. Until hearts and minds change dramatically, primarily on the Palestinian Arab side, what the Israelis need to do is (a) hold out the olive leaf - as opposed to the Likud approach -,(b) assume it will be ignored and (c) hunker down based on the view that the assumption that Hamas, in fact, represents the views of enough Palestinian Arabs to make ceding land dangerous and the view that the PA is not really interested in actually resolving the dispute.
Thanks for reading my blog again, Neal, and thanks for your feedback.
I don't necessarily disagree with your point about hostages, etc. Firstly, I would clarify that I did not claim that Israel's policy was uniquely "Jewish." It is uniquely "Zionist." One of the implicit principles of the Israeli national ethos is that Israel stands to affirm and defend the basic humanity of Jews in a world where many groups and forces perniciously and gratuitously deny that humanity.
The empirical proof of this principle at work can be seen in many instances, but none more clear than in the exchange of more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners for the release of Gilad Shalit. I blogged about his capture in 2006, in a post entitled "The Omen."
It seems to me like any argument over whether Israel may "win" this war must be largely semantic. I think that there is a good chance Hamas will not survive this war, and I would call that a just outcome. The tactics Hamas has adopted in this obscene act are so irredeemably evil as to forfeit any claim that Hamas had to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people or anyone else. Anyone who calls themselves members of Hamas simply declares themselves at war with decency, and should expect to be treated accordingly.
But the end of Hamas, I would contend, will not look or feel like "victory" for Israel. If Hamas is terminated, it will come at the cost of the lives of dozens of Israeli hostages, and that will rend a wound in the soul of the Israeli nation that those of us on the outside cannot really comprehend. This war may bring Hamas to an end, but I would also bet that it brings the career of Bibi Netanyahu to an end as well, and I would call that a just outcome too.
The larger point, IMHO, is that even if and when both Hamas and Netanyahu leave the seen, no one on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide is going to feel like a victor. The situation will be back firmly at square one, and all of the problems that confronted Israel-Palestine and the world before last Friday will still exist, only worse (and that is if we are all very lucky). If this conflict proves anything it is that a resolution of the status of Palestine and the Palestinian people is imperative, no other policy initiative is meaningful in its absence. Whether you are trying to negotiate diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia or design a new sanitation system for Haifa, if you are not simultaneously thinking about how to negotiate the equal and peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs you are just spinning your wheels and sitting in the path of oncoming doom.
I'm not really interested in arguing about whether there should be a one-state or a two-state solution, or whether or not any Palestinian group wants peace. Nothing can justify keeping five million people stateless and effectively disenfranchised. Anyone who is tolerating or facilitating that state of affairs, Palestinian, Israeli, or otherwise, is liable, and is under the onus to correct it. Moreover, nothing anyone else is doing or not doing mitigates that responsibility. The politics of this problem are very complicated, and it would be silly to expect it to be resolved quickly. But it is fair to judge any political party or government on the evidence of whether or not they are working in good faith toward a resolution of the problem, regardless of what their counterparts on the other side do or do not do.
I am not Israeli so I can only speak based on my reading and my fairly substantial contact with Israelis. While the pain from what has occurred and what is going to occur now - and the Israelis seem set on eliminating Hamas, at the very least -, will haunt Israelis, that was also the case for Americans in light of Sept. 11, 2001 or after Pearl Harbor. So, I think you are looking at the world too narrowly. It may well be that Israelis will be particularly impacted in more extreme ways than were Americans after September 11 or after Pearl Harbor, but that is likely to be a difference in degree, and not in kind.
I agree with you that resolving the dispute is a moral imperative for the reasons you state. However, something can be a moral imperative without being at all possible. I am not an academic. My experience with academics, frankly, is that they very often tend to confuse what is desirable - even morally imperative - with what is remotely possible. One state is, by far, the least practical approach unless you want to create a civil war and, frankly, morally problematic.
I should add, in addition to a two state solution - and, for now, that is not possible - solving the Palestinian Arab problem does not actually require creating a Palestinian Arab state. Another approach - and given the current events, perhaps something new to explore - would be for Gaza to return to Egypt and parts of the West Bank territories to return to Jordan. As for the refugees, they can become citizens of the states they live in, just as others over history who have been displaced due to the outcomes of wars. Ask the Sudetenland Germans. They did not desire to be pushed into Germany but life, as the saying goes, goes on.
Asking the Israelis to have a one state solution is morally bankrupt. Moreover, it is contrary to Zionist ideology, which calls for a state for the Jewish people, not a state likely to become another Arab state. What on earth are you thinking?
I was really not trying to be patronizing. My apology. Perhaps there was a bit too much emotion in my response.
For the record, I’m Jewish. And, I have read very, very widely about Jewish history. I reiterate my view: Jewish history impacts Israel’s reaction ***by degree***. So far, the reaction has been very much akin to the US reaction to 9/11.
I was not actually advocating for a settlement that brings in Egypt and Jordan. I doubt that, at present and for the foreseeable future, there is any way to resolve the dispute. I still think that the Israel should always offer an olive branch, present their specific settlement plan publicly and ask the Arab side to publicly present its plan.
So far as the views of Buber, Einstein and Szold - and others, for that matter -, I don't see their relevance to my comment. Israel is long since an established country. Perhaps, pre-1948, the idea of one state with the Palestinian Arabs might have made some sense. But, at this point, to advocate for one state is, I think, to advocate against Zionism. That's true whether it comes from an Israeli or from anyone else. I do, to reiterate, agree with you that it is for the Israelis and Arabs to decide what they want. That said, I rather doubt all that many Israelis examining the current situation are particularly interested in increasing the power of Palestinian Arabs, whether in two states or one. I think they see decreasing Palestinian Arab power as being an urgent necessity.
I also really do not see - and we shall have to agree to disagree - how Israel would be a safe haven for Jews given the current state of the ME. The region remains in an historic upheaval. That upheaval has created great hostility towards Jews, among others. While the Abraham Accords suggest the beginning of a change of heart among Arab rulers and elite, that’s it.
Assuming, arguendo, that the Arab world were to resume the Arab tradition of "toleration" for non-Muslims, that concept has thus far never involved treating non-Muslims as anything like equals. One state means non-Jews either dominating or pushing to dominate. Jews also want to dominate the Jewish homeland, but even if that were not the case, such does not solve the problem of the Arab tradition. Assuming, as I actually do, that both sides would want to be dominant in any arrangement that involves co-existence in one state, there will have to be a lot change in the hearts and minds of those involved to prevent civil war or, given that the region is primarily Arab, to prevent the subjugation of its Jews. As things now stand, Arabs in Israel proper are offered considerably more than tolerance (even if it is slightly less than 100% equality).
The PA's long standing position is that any settlement involves the removal of Jews from what would be the Palestinian Arab state. That is the traditional position taken by a liberation movements seeking both to gain a foothold for further liberation of land and, concurrently, removing what are perceived as invaders from their midst. Which is to say, Israel should, on their thinking, be multi-ethnic but Palestine should be 100% Arab because such will advance the cause of removing invaders. What reason would there be to think that such agenda would disappear if there were one state?
So far as my reading, you may need to provide me with a book list, although, frankly, I actually have read a great deal about Zionism, Israel, the Middle East, the region's religions and culture, etc., etc. (i.e., something in the range of several hundred books on these topics). It was, at one point, very much a passion of mine. My life, however, has moved to other topics in the last 10 years or so, with my focus on Europe. But, I am always up for reading a good book. I might recommend you read a book, if you have not yet read it - and, at this point, it is slightly dated but, so far as I can see, it is still a valuable source. The books is One State, Two States, but Benny Morris.
Neal,
Thank you for your apology, it is very gracious of you to offer it and I accept. I would only offer one piece of advice. If in the future you are arguing with someone and wonder whether asking “what on earth were you thinking?” is patronizing, trust me…it is.
I have ordered Benny Morris’s book. It is a bit dated (published in 2009) but of course I respect Morris as a scholar and a thinker. It does not surprise me that he would oppose a one-state solution, from everything I have read about his politics. I don’t think that he will change my opinion, but I will endeavor to read his arguments with an open mind.
I don’t doubt that you have read extensively, you are obviously much better informed than most people about Middle East history and politics. I don’t know what recommendations I could make to you for books you have not yet perused. If you have not read any of Rashid Khalidi’s or Edward Said’s writings, they are well worth a look. If you have not read through Arthur Hertzberg’s The Zionist Idea or Gil Troy’s update of that anthology, The Zionist Ideas, they would both interest you. I found Dmitry Shumsky’s Beyond the Nation State: The Zionist Imagination from Pinsker to Ben Gurion very illuminating. The biographies in Yale’s Jewish Lives series are all very good. I would especially recommend Jabotinsky: A Life by Hillel Harkin and Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution by Yehudah Mirsky. A book more comparable to Morris’s would be Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi.
Like you I am Jewish, so this issue is not an academic abstraction for me. Much is at stake for me, my family, and many of our friends. My immediate family thankfully has not lost anyone very close to us, but posts from friends about loved ones who are lost, have been killed, or are injured continue to fill my social media feeds. Beyond posting our thoughts, my family has tried to help with donations for those in urgent need.
The comparison between 10/7 and 9/11 will of course be made often, and much will no doubt continue to be written about it for some time to come. I would not claim that the Israelis feel any worse about 10/7 than Americans did about 9/11 (though they would be justified in that feeling- as has been repeatedly remarked, the loss Israel suffered would be the equivalent of 25,000 Americans being killed). But the political rifts that Israel experiences as a result of 10/7 (once the war itself is over) have nothing to do with the relative sensitivity of the Israeli people to tragedy. Historical and ideological factors (which I outlined in my post and earlier in this thread, having to do with the legacy of the Holocaust and antisemitism) will make those rifts much worse than even those which occurred here in the US in the aftermath of 9/11. /1 of 2
The situation is comparable to (to take one example) the different political dynamics concerning religious garb in the U.S. and France. The French have banned the wearing of crosses, yarmulkes, and hijab in public schools. If you tried to exercise such a ban in the U.S. it would cause riots. This is not because Americans love freedom more than the French. It is because the unique history of the USA makes questions of religious pluralism and the relationship between church and state a flashpoint of political unrest. The same kind of historical dynamic is at work in Israel now. The systemic commitments that successive Israeli governments have been historically bound to make to the protection of the lives and dignity of Jews makes any of the choices that Israeli leaders are confronted with in the current crisis intractable. Again, if you insist I am wrong about that we will just have to agree to disagree.
With regard to the prospects of reconciling Zionism with Palestinian sovereignty, again we must agree to disagree. Both Zionism and Palestinian nationhood are much too fluid and malleable for it to be possible for anyone (you, me, Benny Morris, or anyone else) to declare that the definition of one precludes the realization of the other. Both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism exist in many forms and are evolving all the time. In the final analysis they must be reconciled, because the lives and welfare of the people these ideals purport to serve depend on such a reconciliation.
You may, for example, dismiss Buber, Szold, and Einstein if you so desire, but the Israelis cannot. There would be no Israel without those three (among others)- they were indispensable to articulating and communicating the arguments for the moral and political necessity of a Jewish homeland that came to fruition in 1948. Those same arguments are the foundation for Israel’s claim (which I support) of having a right to exist today. As long as Israel exists, the legacy of those thinkers will be vital.
Zionism did not become fixed in amber after 1948. There is no more consensus about what “true Zionism” is today than there was back in 1947. To my mind, no one embodied the ideals of Zionism more concretely than Yitzhak Rabin, but Yigdal Amir shot him dead as a “traitor” to the Zionist cause. The Zionism of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Zionism of Yuval Harari today are as different as oil and water.
The same principles that apply on the side of Israelis does so on that of the Palestinians. There is no one consensual Palestinian position that, because it is “incompatible” with the interest of Jews or the ideals of Zionism, makes any form of reconciliation impossible. There are virtually as many different visions of Palestine as there are Palestinians. Some of them are heinous (as some of the Religious Zionist visions of Israel on the Jewish side, like that which robbed us of Yitzhak Rabin, are also heinous), but many of them are reasonable. And most importantly- all of them are negotiable.
There is no doubt that any transition to Palestinian sovereignty, whether a “one-state” or “two-state” solution would be tragically difficult, perhaps violently so. But it is equally doubtless that Israel cannot survive in a world in which more than five million Palestinians remain stateless. The problems being caused by that state of affairs were already ripping Israel apart before 10/7. People may have imagined that the conflicts sending Israelis into the streets were a purely internal “Jewish” Israeli affair, but they were not. The chief reason that Netanyahu’s coalition partners were trying to seize more power was in order to block any hope of Palestinian statehood. There is no resolution of Israel’s internal conflicts without a resolution of the question of Palestinian sovereignty. 10/7 proved that it is not only true, but that it is an existentially urgent imperative./2 of 2
Part II
You write: "But it is equally doubtless that Israel cannot survive in a world in which more than five million Palestinians remain stateless." Assuming, arguendo that what you assert is true - but noting that there are 60 million stateless people in the world, yet the world goes on as if they did not exist -, such actually does require a very substantial change of heart by Palestine Arabs and by at least average people in the wider Arab world (and not merely by Israelis). That change of heart is something the Israelis really cannot alter substantially because it is derived, not merely or even primarily by the dispute's history but also primarily by a theological rejection by most Muslims of the right of non-Muslim governance, full stop, but most particularly where there are large Muslim populations (or on land perceived to be part of the Muslim world). [That view, moreover, also impacts relations between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon and we all know how well one state has worked in Lebanon. Such view, now further amplified substantially in this period of religious revival has further led to a new, perhaps quite heretical, way of understanding Islam, a way unfortunately adopted by a considerable segment of Muslims, also plays a substantial part in the terror campaign that resulted in 9/11, the attacks in Madrid, London, Paris, etc., etc..]
Religious belief is a very powerful thing, something often overlooked by our lives where religion plays a smaller role in our politics and daily life than in other parts of the world. Such is most particularly the case in the Islamic regions. This point was imprinted in my thinking after I read an interesting book by MJ Akbar, an Muslim Indian. He wrote (in The Shade of Swords): "Most Christians might shrug if asked whether they really believed that Jesus turned water into wine, or raised Lazarus from the dead. Muslims by contrast do not doubt that Allah's angels helped the Prophet at the battle of Badr. Allah is a living god to them, as palpable and meaningful as an ideal parent might be." Professor Lewis has asserted more or less the same thing but, in this case, I thought it important for you to see how a well educated Muslim writer understands the matter.
Please note that I do not claim anything here as a critique of Islam. For the record, I think that Islam is a fascinating religion, one that I spent a substantial time investigating. My point, instead, is that attitudes associated with religion, in this case most particularly Islam, represent a major hurdle for both understanding and resolving the dispute. You note that the Shoah colors how Israelis understand the world and, quite obviously, plays a role in both understanding and resolving the dispute. The religious tradition and beliefs of Muslims - and the theologically established obligation for Muslims to govern Muslims being centrally important in traditional as well as current Islamic religious thinking - cannot be dismissed because it is a very specific element undermining the possibility of any real settlement of the Israel Palestine Arab dispute, whether in one state, two states, or whatever.
In any event, living in a period of street level religious revival, most particularly among Muslim Arabs, suggests that one state for both Jews and Arabs would be truly suicidal for all involved. (See, civil war, Lebanon.) Groups like Hamas do not believe in states, in any event.
My recipe for resolving the dispute is time, plus luck and hope that the region does not blow itself up. In the meanwhile, the Israeli government would be well advised, once this current horror is resolved, to hold out the olive leaf, present a comprehensive plan, all details presented publicly for resolving the dispute and ask that Arabs present their plans publicly, including details.
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