A conquered people
Assimilate or depart
No right of return
Assimilate or depart
No right of return
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Radical BDS Movement Targets Israel for Destruction
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is about a decade old. It couches its appeals to Western sensibilities in a language of righteous indignation that never gets old. The Palestinian nationalists behind the BDS movement use it as another strategy to achieve their goal of destroying Israel. It is fair to identify the BDS movement's supporters and their own goals.
NGO Monitor has done excellent work tracking the funders of the BDS movement and its allied causes. The New Israel Fund aligned with BDS is particularly noteworthy for its history of supporting Israeli NGOs that make false or misleading claims about Israel's justice system and military operations. Even the BDS symbol is an adaptation of the Palestinian "Handala" cartoon encouraging perpetual victimhood. Handala figures prominently in the imagery of the Palestinian right of return principle. It is obvious that Israelis and others who adhere to the right of return principle have not considered the effects of forced immigration on Israeli citizens.
Israelis and Jewish-Americans who sign on to the BDS movement are, in the phraseology attributed to the Comintern describing their international collaborators, useful idiots. Jewish Voice for Peace claims the BDS positions are going mainstream. That claim is unverifiable, and is certainly untrue within mainstream Judaism after Jewish organizations have repeatedly identified JVP representatives as unwelcome. The Anti-Defamation League has an excellent backgrounder on how JVP covers for the anti-Israel agenda of other entities.
I had a very unenlightening experience in recent weeks when a JVP activist spoke to a foreign policy study group I frequently attend at one of San Francisco's most renowned civic affairs clubs. She sounded very naive, as if they could all sing Kumbaya to give the Palestinians their own state. This woman claimed that JVP's social network audience exceeds AIPAC's audience. I just did my own checking today on Twitter, Facebook, and Alexa.
JVP Twitter followers: 41,500
AIPAC Twitter Followers: 46,000
JVP Facebook fans: 206,756
AIPAC Facebook fans: 102,417
JVP website Alexa rank: Global rank 536,838; US rank 123,682
AIPAC website Alexa rank: Global rank 214,495; US rank 36,527
The numbers show AIPAC leading JVP in two of those three metrics. The JVP woman was either lying or stupid to make her claim of social reach. Radical activists are not above lying to move their agenda. Soviet dupes in the West did it all the time.
BDS activists often draw false parallels between their movement and the US civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, or the Northern Ireland peace process. The red herrings fly fast and furious with these people. The US civil rights movement never lobbied for a separate homeland for African Americans, but for justice within a single-state solution. The anti-apartheid movement was a similar recognition of a single state's legitimacy. The Northern Ireland peace process ended with recognition of British sovereignty, another single state solution. The BDS objective of weakening Israel's ability to defend itself through a military boycott, with no requirement for the Palestinian territories to likewise disarm, is not the moral equivalent of earlier movements for peace and justice.
It is glaringly obvious that JVP and other BDS supporters in the Anglo-West have not conducted any serious thinking about what happens after their boycott succeeds and a Palestinian state crowds out a greatly weakened Israel. Where would Palestinian returnees settle? Would they go to Israel to evict Israelis or to a Palestine that may not be able to absorb them? Will the GDP of a Palestinian state support both its existing citizens and new returnees? Will Hamas abandon its charter's pledge to destroy Israel and evict all Jews from the Middle East? Is a comprehensive Israel-Palestine peace even possible while a Sunni-Shia conflict exists within Islam? Serious diplomats across the Middle East and the Anglo-West have wrestled with these questions for decades. The only firm answer has always come in the form of Israel's ability to defend itself from existential threats.
Radical elements within the Palestinian nationalist movement have never surrendered their goal of destroying Israel. The methods change to make the goal seem palatable to sympathetic Westerners. The BDS movement is another strategy to de-legitimize Israel. It does not yet pose an existential threat to Israel by itself, but it is clearly a form of asymmetric warfare.
NGO Monitor has done excellent work tracking the funders of the BDS movement and its allied causes. The New Israel Fund aligned with BDS is particularly noteworthy for its history of supporting Israeli NGOs that make false or misleading claims about Israel's justice system and military operations. Even the BDS symbol is an adaptation of the Palestinian "Handala" cartoon encouraging perpetual victimhood. Handala figures prominently in the imagery of the Palestinian right of return principle. It is obvious that Israelis and others who adhere to the right of return principle have not considered the effects of forced immigration on Israeli citizens.
Israelis and Jewish-Americans who sign on to the BDS movement are, in the phraseology attributed to the Comintern describing their international collaborators, useful idiots. Jewish Voice for Peace claims the BDS positions are going mainstream. That claim is unverifiable, and is certainly untrue within mainstream Judaism after Jewish organizations have repeatedly identified JVP representatives as unwelcome. The Anti-Defamation League has an excellent backgrounder on how JVP covers for the anti-Israel agenda of other entities.
I had a very unenlightening experience in recent weeks when a JVP activist spoke to a foreign policy study group I frequently attend at one of San Francisco's most renowned civic affairs clubs. She sounded very naive, as if they could all sing Kumbaya to give the Palestinians their own state. This woman claimed that JVP's social network audience exceeds AIPAC's audience. I just did my own checking today on Twitter, Facebook, and Alexa.
JVP Twitter followers: 41,500
AIPAC Twitter Followers: 46,000
JVP Facebook fans: 206,756
AIPAC Facebook fans: 102,417
JVP website Alexa rank: Global rank 536,838; US rank 123,682
AIPAC website Alexa rank: Global rank 214,495; US rank 36,527
The numbers show AIPAC leading JVP in two of those three metrics. The JVP woman was either lying or stupid to make her claim of social reach. Radical activists are not above lying to move their agenda. Soviet dupes in the West did it all the time.
BDS activists often draw false parallels between their movement and the US civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, or the Northern Ireland peace process. The red herrings fly fast and furious with these people. The US civil rights movement never lobbied for a separate homeland for African Americans, but for justice within a single-state solution. The anti-apartheid movement was a similar recognition of a single state's legitimacy. The Northern Ireland peace process ended with recognition of British sovereignty, another single state solution. The BDS objective of weakening Israel's ability to defend itself through a military boycott, with no requirement for the Palestinian territories to likewise disarm, is not the moral equivalent of earlier movements for peace and justice.
It is glaringly obvious that JVP and other BDS supporters in the Anglo-West have not conducted any serious thinking about what happens after their boycott succeeds and a Palestinian state crowds out a greatly weakened Israel. Where would Palestinian returnees settle? Would they go to Israel to evict Israelis or to a Palestine that may not be able to absorb them? Will the GDP of a Palestinian state support both its existing citizens and new returnees? Will Hamas abandon its charter's pledge to destroy Israel and evict all Jews from the Middle East? Is a comprehensive Israel-Palestine peace even possible while a Sunni-Shia conflict exists within Islam? Serious diplomats across the Middle East and the Anglo-West have wrestled with these questions for decades. The only firm answer has always come in the form of Israel's ability to defend itself from existential threats.
Radical elements within the Palestinian nationalist movement have never surrendered their goal of destroying Israel. The methods change to make the goal seem palatable to sympathetic Westerners. The BDS movement is another strategy to de-legitimize Israel. It does not yet pose an existential threat to Israel by itself, but it is clearly a form of asymmetric warfare.
Friday, March 1, 2013
The Impossibility of a Two-State Israel-Palestine Solution
The Internet is full of well-intentioned ideas for peace in the Middle East, specifically a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of these ideas are garbage. This conflict is as old as the earliest settlements in the Levant. It will continue until one party is no longer able or willing to continue the conflict and the remaining party is a viable nation-state.
The most promising chance for peace in the modern era was the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement of 1919. The end of WWI allowed a window of opportunity for wise Arab leaders to acquiesce to a Jewish state in Palestine, in exchange for Jewish help in developing their economies. The borders of the proposed Jewish homeland were contiguous with all of what are today called "occupied" Palestinian territories. The entirety of this territory gives a single state strategic depth and is defensible. The meddling of Great Powers's Sykes-Picot Agreement ruined what would have been a comprehensive peace. Meddling continued with the UN Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, with borders so ludicrous that no one in their right mind could accept them. Palestine's borders are just as ludicrous today, with the Gaza Strip and West Bank obviously indefensible and impossible to sustain economically.
Palestinians have never been fully accepted by other Arabs, who view them with disdain as interlopers with little legitimate claim to territory. Their inability to assimilate into Israeli civilization is not Israel's fault; indeed, many Arabs have succeeded as Israeli citizens and have been elected to the Israeli Knesset. Arab Israelis retain their Muslim religious affiliation and have served honorably in the Israeli military. Their kinship with Palestinians has not prevented them assimilating into Israeli society. They have found peace in their own way. Many other Arabs and Israelis work for peace in their own ways, despite radical Muslims who reject Israel's right to exist.
The international narrative advocating some kind of two-state solution is a curiosity. Its persistence attests to the deep pockets of its sponsors, specifically the petroleum-producing Arab states, and the ready audience among naive advocates in the NGO and diplomatic communities. I would like a two-state advocate to explain who will defend the Golan Heights from a corps-strength Arab armored assault.
The state of Israel and the Palestinian diaspora are two incompatible civilizations. The untenable status quo puts a non-viable proto-state of Palestinians in the midst of a viable Israeli democracy. This subjects the Palestinian people to the endless manipulation of outside powers, specifically radical Islamic governments and movements that view them as permanent dependents. This is a tragedy for the Palestinian people that a two-state solution will perpetuate. The stronger civilization at this moment in history is clearly Israel. It is a democratic, multi-ethnic, technologically advanced society that has been a bulwark of American security interests in the Middle East for most of its modern history. The United States would do well to align its interests with those of Israel, the ultimate guarantor of its own Arab citizens' security.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Analysis of Joel Brinkley, "Israel And The Arab Spring"
I attended a lecture today at the Commonwealth Club of California by Joel Brinkley, Pulitzer Prize winner and experienced journalist. His lecture "Israel And The Arab Spring" spent remarkably little time on the Arab Spring's causes and its effects on Israel. Audience questions drove him to frame everything in terms of the stalled Middle East peace process, which showed the audience's pro-Palestinian bias and covered little new ground.
Mr. Brinkley's opening contention that Israel's foreign policy is the most self-destructive ever was a shocker, depending on your interpretation. From the perspective of Bay Area idealists who wish Jews and Arabs could lock arms and sign "kumbayah" after forgetting 3000 or so years of tribal conflict, I suppose Israel's heavy-handed approach to cracking down on threats can appear self-destructive. Mr. Brinkley argued that the Arab Spring's emphasis on nonviolent protest opens a window of opportunity for Israel to engage in dialogue with whomever in the Arab community is leading such protests. If only life were so simple.
The Arab Spring has little to do with the Anglo-West's projection of its own pluralistic and humanistic values onto Middle Easterners. Underemployed Arab youths expressed their anger at largely secular regimes over high food prices and few job opportunities. There will be precious little diplomatic opportunity for Israel to open dialogue with radical Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood should they come to power in Egypt. Some in Israel's political establishment should know this already, as Hamas was created from the Muslim Brotherhood and has never wavered from its goal of destroying Israel. Mr. Brinkley acknowledged Hamas' intransigence later in his lecture. We could all use some deep background on the larger story of the Muslim Brotherhood's role in the Arab Spring.
Some of Mr. Brinkley's other observations point to further intractability in the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict. He noted that Palestinians evicted from their historic homes in Israel proper don't seem to want to return no matter they're offered. Perhaps the victim mentality of living in occupied camps is so ingrained now that they can't imagine life outside of a ghetto. He mentioned that Israel, for its part, won't surrender its fortifications on the Jordanian border to allow for a more secure Palestinian homeland. This is actually pretty reasonable IMHO. Israel has been repeatedly invaded by its Arab neighbors and its lack of strategic depth means it must position an early-warning tripwire as far forward as possible.
The whole Israel/Palestine mess won't be resolved the way our tolerant Bay Area audience at the Commonwealth Club would like. The ultimate solution is really rather simple and won't look anything like the results of a negotiation. In all of human history, no two tribes or civilizations have ever been able to simultaneously occupy the same piece of real estate. The stronger civilization always emerges victorious; it can absorb the weaker civilization demographically; it can forcibly relocate the weaker party; or it can pursue a strategy of annihilation a la Genghis Khan. The stronger tribe at the moment is Israel, but that advantage may not last longer than another generation given the Palestinians' accelerating birthrate. The water tables upon which both nations must subsist are declining. That in itself will force a conflict over who gets to live where. Mr. Brinkley dismissed the final audience question over demographics as no big deal; he may wish to revisit that stance in the years ahead.
Mr. Brinkley's opening contention that Israel's foreign policy is the most self-destructive ever was a shocker, depending on your interpretation. From the perspective of Bay Area idealists who wish Jews and Arabs could lock arms and sign "kumbayah" after forgetting 3000 or so years of tribal conflict, I suppose Israel's heavy-handed approach to cracking down on threats can appear self-destructive. Mr. Brinkley argued that the Arab Spring's emphasis on nonviolent protest opens a window of opportunity for Israel to engage in dialogue with whomever in the Arab community is leading such protests. If only life were so simple.
The Arab Spring has little to do with the Anglo-West's projection of its own pluralistic and humanistic values onto Middle Easterners. Underemployed Arab youths expressed their anger at largely secular regimes over high food prices and few job opportunities. There will be precious little diplomatic opportunity for Israel to open dialogue with radical Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood should they come to power in Egypt. Some in Israel's political establishment should know this already, as Hamas was created from the Muslim Brotherhood and has never wavered from its goal of destroying Israel. Mr. Brinkley acknowledged Hamas' intransigence later in his lecture. We could all use some deep background on the larger story of the Muslim Brotherhood's role in the Arab Spring.
Some of Mr. Brinkley's other observations point to further intractability in the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict. He noted that Palestinians evicted from their historic homes in Israel proper don't seem to want to return no matter they're offered. Perhaps the victim mentality of living in occupied camps is so ingrained now that they can't imagine life outside of a ghetto. He mentioned that Israel, for its part, won't surrender its fortifications on the Jordanian border to allow for a more secure Palestinian homeland. This is actually pretty reasonable IMHO. Israel has been repeatedly invaded by its Arab neighbors and its lack of strategic depth means it must position an early-warning tripwire as far forward as possible.
The whole Israel/Palestine mess won't be resolved the way our tolerant Bay Area audience at the Commonwealth Club would like. The ultimate solution is really rather simple and won't look anything like the results of a negotiation. In all of human history, no two tribes or civilizations have ever been able to simultaneously occupy the same piece of real estate. The stronger civilization always emerges victorious; it can absorb the weaker civilization demographically; it can forcibly relocate the weaker party; or it can pursue a strategy of annihilation a la Genghis Khan. The stronger tribe at the moment is Israel, but that advantage may not last longer than another generation given the Palestinians' accelerating birthrate. The water tables upon which both nations must subsist are declining. That in itself will force a conflict over who gets to live where. Mr. Brinkley dismissed the final audience question over demographics as no big deal; he may wish to revisit that stance in the years ahead.
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