Centerfield: Middle East Peace Hopeless Without Post-Zionism

December 04, 2007

Middle East Peace Hopeless Without Post-Zionism

As I see it, peace between Israel, Palestine, and other Israeli neighbors is hopeless without some ideas from Post-Zionism being applied. It needs to be at least in Israeli leadership and summit participants. But the current ruling generation in Israel seems are living in utter denial of this kind of thinking. And, of course, it's much worse on the Palestinian side. Nor have I heard Rice or Blair talking much along these lines. We need at least one more generation while these ideas pick up steam both in Israel and outside.

The sad fact is that the creation of Israel was, by modern ethical standards, an evil act. It was ethnic cleansing - the Palestinians were mostly pushed out of their turf, with all the accompanying ills that accompany such, whether done by the UN or us taking over Indian territory, or Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. It even continued until recently, via the settlements. And there is plenty more.

Zionism is also unethical by modern standards. It inherently gives special treatment in Israel to one special group - Jews - especially to Ashkenazi Jews. It treats Arabs and Arab-looking people as second-class to maintain a notion of security for Israel (the results of said security policy have hardly been encouraging, but it continues unabated).

Another way Zionism breaks liberal standards is priviledging Judaism. Like the British priviedging Anglicanism, it is a sore at the heart of the state and Judaism in Israel. The state is growing more divided between secular and orthodox Judaism variants.

Alot of Palestinian anti-Zionism has an even worse record, and is even less interested in justice. Eliminating Israel or executing the Palestinian notion of the Right of Return - which includes returning all lands - would compound injustice rather than fix it. The world is well past an eye for an eye.

So, what should be done? Well, having two states isn't enough, because it only gets at one of the roots of the problem. The original ethnic cleansing sin of the creation of Israel must be admitted and expiated in some fashion. Israel must give over its internal and external racisms, just as the United States did. Encouragement of moderacy and democracy in Palestine must continue. Judaism's special privileges must be reduced. Some of these are already well in progress. But good luck getting an admission of wrongness in Israel's creation from Israel's leaders.

Posted by Jon Kay at December 4, 2007 01:13 AM

Comments

Can't disagree with you more. Mostly a desert and the vast majority that left took up arms against Israel having been convinced by others, Israel would fall. If you read your history, moderate Arab regimes actually encouraged Zionism. Back before Jesus, Arabs and Jews died fighting Rome together. What better way than to bring prosperity and know-how to the Middle East back before WW2? Unfortunately, what Churchill feared came true and the Nazis element was transferred to the Brotherhood via the Mufti taking recent modern form in Saddam. The nastiness evoked left Jewish communities threatened.

When the shit hits the fan and extremism exposes the target to be far more than Israel, we will be thankful Israelis are there as the first line of defense. Your theory sinks into utopian dogma and betrays your realism about human nature and national security. Until Islam accepts women, minorities, secular society governed by Constitutional Process and Human Rights, what you are suggesting will not happen. Jefferson would clearly say that Zionism in present Israeli forms trumps the horrors of Islamic extremism.

When you put enough Ivy League schooling into national intelligence you get the latest NIE. I guess Obama or Edwards is your guy.

Posted by: Maxtrue at December 4, 2007 12:14 PM

So your theory is that the root of the problem is that Israel is insufficiently liberal and secular?! Or is it just that as long as it's insufficiently liberal and secular, it deserves unending war against it, despite all its enemies admittedly being worse. You know, at a certain point, holding Israel to standards higher than every other entity it's supposed to reach an accord with merely to get acknowledgment of its right to exist becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety Antisemitism. The links you posted aren't at all reassuring on that front.

Tell you what, though, as soon as all the states of the region become as democratic, liberal and secular as Israel now is, guaranteeing their non-Islamic citizens as great a measure of rights as Israel grants non-Jewish citizens, I'll be happy to endorse them all entering the next stage together.

Posted by: Joshua Macy at December 5, 2007 09:06 AM

Maxtrue wrote:
When the shit hits the fan and extremism exposes the target to be far more than Israel, we will be thankful Israelis are there as the first line of defense. Your theory sinks into utopian dogma and betrays your realism about human nature and national security. Until Islam accepts women, minorities, secular society governed by Constitutional Process and Human Rights, what you are suggesting will not happen.

...er, plenty of Muslims here in the US and Israel DO accept liberal values. The fraction of suiciders here is pretty low. People here choose to be here, which would also be true in Israel in a 2-state solution.

Jefferson would clearly say that Zionism in present Israeli forms trumps the horrors of Islamic extremism.

He certainly would - he advanced things greatly in his day, but in his day, ethnic cleansing wasn't yet seen as evil. He even devised a mostly-peaceful plan for ethnically cleansing the Indians all the way to the Plains. After all, by his lights, they were inferior and didn't deserve equal protection.

Joshua wrote:
So your theory is that the root of the problem is that Israel is insufficiently liberal and secular?! Or is it just that as long as it's insufficiently liberal and secular, it deserves unending war against it, despite all its enemies admittedly being worse. You know, at a certain point, holding Israel to standards higher than every other entity it's supposed to reach an accord with merely to get acknowledgment of its right to exist becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety Antisemitism. The links you posted aren't at all reassuring on that front.

...so, you're saying that just because Israel is under attack, it gets a get-out-of-jail free card for criticizing its actions? Democracy 101 says not. Certainly, its own citizens criticize it all the time for everything under the sun, even with missiles flying.

I don't think that insult you're bandying so easily, "anti-semitism", means what you think it does. Perhaps you would care to demonstrate that it really does fit FROM WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE and a definition?

Posted by: Jon Kay at December 5, 2007 09:28 PM

You strike out along an Anti-Zionist line, not a two state solution.. The ancient inhabitants who have been excluded from nations as citizens have no right like Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon or Indonesian to a Jewish State anymore than Muslims, Islamic Republics? Jefferson never said that. Human Rights and Constitutional process do not prohibit other nations of their sovereign Democracy in electing a national prerogative towards religion. Why not just get to your end point and have one giant America based on demographic democracy. You had better have ten more kids. But I won't debate your anti-Zionism.

In reality, your argument if I understand it correctly is not born out by facts. The governments of most Islamic countries impinge on human rights and Constitutional process. In that regard, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Washington would all object. That is why we, in the west, ought to object, not because the majority of Israelis trend towards Jewish identity, but because their regional neighbors have trouble in the basics of Liberal society. No, Israel isn’t America. Nor is France or Russia. And Muslim countries in present form cannot be compared to Israel politically. As I said, one day perhaps such a liberal fusion is possible in a greater Middle East Union.

As far as the Palestinisans themselves, they are in a civil war over their cause. They have no intention of secular society that you describe and many want the exclusion of Jews, not their peaceful inclusion. In fact, Israel supports the more liberal Palestinian faction. The fact that Muslims can assimilate into America has little bearing on the nationalistic and religious aspirations of the people who inhabit the region you judge. The reformation of most Muslim populations is far from peaceful unity. In the West the leading Norwegian anti-West jihadist fights not to be deported back to Iraq while European Muslims have rallied to ban AL Jezzera from operating in Europe. The relationship of many Westernized Muslims is mixed and again, little indication that the regimes in Iran and Syria or the numerous extremist groups operating throughout the Muslim world are really partners in the solution you describe.

So I hail those Muslims who have reached a healthy balance between Islam and Liberal Democracy. Let's pray they are never beheaded for apostasy. Those preaching the death of the West, sedition is ample ground for deportation to countries were justice may be served in Islamic fashion..

To suggest Israelis let pure democracy abound in secular fashion would be signing their own death warrants. You are wrong that Israel is more divided. Never before have Israelis recognized not to depend on a US that could produce such questionable post War planning and the logic of the latest NIE. Careful Jay, you're sounding more like Nixon. Damn Jews and their bomb. Certainly not Churchillian. I guess all those Jews should have immigrated to Israel instead of the DOD.

Your two state solution by the way is not the two state solution commonly referred to as the two-state solution. What you mean is one state dominated by Muslims wanting Jews out.

As far as Jefferson, his ultimate defense of his position on slavery and Indians was that these groups were unwilling to be part of a secular society. He somehow felt their equality within the States required a degree of assimilation he imagined wasn’t possible. I do not accept that ultimately there will be such incompatibility. Jefferson was wrong about Blacks, but at the time no one (except perhaps Ben) thought Blacks could be incorporated. Frankin observed whites who went Indian rarely came back. Indians living well in colonial society eventual preferred Indian society. Indian life style was often deemed better somehow than western stress and urbanization. Again, the problem was incorporation. Given the globalization of technology and Liberal values (at least in terms of media reach), Islamists are a bit contraire and hardly deserve comparison with the Knesset which has Arab representatives and allows for the open criticism of the Israeli leadership. In Iran that’s called treason.

No, you sound a bit like an atheist Jimmy Carter.

Posted by: Maxtrue at December 5, 2007 11:17 PM

A solution?

Posted by: Maxtrue at December 6, 2007 12:15 AM

a solution?

Posted by: Maxtrue at December 6, 2007 12:16 AM

Jon,

I agree with you to some extent but I think you have overstated the issues. Yes, there was some "ethnic cleansing" (really an anachronistic term) but I don't think the evidence suggests that the Palestineans were "mostly" pushed out. Some left because they had been given propaganda about the Israelis. I will grant that, in hindsight, putting a Jewish state in the middle of millions of Arabs was not a good idea. But it's a little ahistorical to not recognize the context in which Zionism developed. Jews were not welcome, for the most part, in Europe and, even in the US, anti-semitism was rampant. Even before and after the Holocause, countries weren't scrambling to take Jews in.

I don't think this justifies the Israelis actions toward the Palestineans in the occupied territories and I agree that much of Israeli thinking is ossified. My wife has family in Israel and their views on Arabs aren't much different than southerners' views on blacks in the 50s. And I agree that the Zionist mentality is problematic; ironically, I think it's more of a problem among Jews in the United States in many ways than in Israel. The real problem in Israel now, I think, is the influx of Russian Jews that have largely extremist/racist views toward the Palestineans. They exercise a lot of influence in Israeli politics and are very reluctant to make any concessions at all.

With respect to Maxtrue, I don't see Jon as saying the Israelis should surrender to the surrounding Arab states. The fact that the Arab states are tyrannical has nothing to do with how the Israelis treat the Palestineans in the occupied territories. After the Six-Day War, the Israelis had an opportunity to remold the Middle East; many of the Palestineans apparently were happy with the Israelis taking over the territories because they had been treated so badly by the Arabs. But Israel squandered this opportunity because the leadership thought the Palestineans didn't matter.

At the same time, I think it's a little simplistic to suggest that all that Israel needs is a "post-Zionist" mentality and everything will be ok. While I favor a two-state solution, there are huge obstacles even assuming that Israel made every concession the Palestineans wanted. Any Palestinean state is going to be poor and weak and susceptible to extremist influences. There will be much envy toward Israel as a much more prosperous Western-style state. And, clearly, politics in a new Palestinean state will be highly volatile and dangerous. There is no Nelson Mandela on the Palestinean side to steer them toward reconciliation and the influence of more radical regimes, such as Iran, is likely to be substantial. And a Palestinean state isn't going to eliminate the virulent anti-semitim that is prevalent in the Muslim world. So, while I agree in principle with Jon and the article's general view, I think it's a bit simplistic to say that post-Zionism is the answer.

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