Let's get serious for a second

A Roadblock on the Road-Map.

Why is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians so widely reported, discussed and dissected, analysed and argued over? Is it, as some Israelis and their supporters would have you believe, because of a latent anti-Semitism that pervades so much of Europe and the Arab world? Is it the insidious and centuries old hatred of the rootless, cosmopolitan Jew, which leads critics of Israel to berate her for her treatment of the Palestinians? Why, when half the world lives under governments that range from the kleptocratic incompetents of the Arab Middle-East, to the insane tyranny of North Korea, is Israel singled out for the criticism she receives? Why should Israel, a liberal democracy in a sea of corrupt autocracies, surrender her right of self defence and self preservation when faced with enemies who threaten to wipe her from the face of the earth? Jews know only too well what happens when they opt to leave their safety in the hands of the benevolence of the human spirit, rather than stand up and fight for their rights. 6 million of their co-religionists could attest to that, had they not been gassed and incinerated 60 ago.

My father, a life-long social democrat and trade-unionist can remember huddling around the radio in 1967, listening in for reports on the Six-Day war. When news of Israel’s swift and decisive victories would come through, he would cheer. As would all his leftist friends in the union movement and the Labour party. It seems unthinkable now, but before the occupation, before the settlements and checkpoints and suicide bombings and collective punishments, the liberal left was enthusiastically pro-Israel. For them, she represented a bastion of social-democracy against which the forces of chauvinistic Arab-nationalism crashed and ruptured. Criticism of Israel came almost exclusively from the right, from the unreconstructed anti-Semites of the European aristocratic elite, and the red-faced rednecks of the American fringe right.

That something changed in the aftermath of 1967 is obvious. If those who denounce all critics of Israel as anti-Semitics are right, then somehow for some reason, in 40 years, the international left, inspired by the teachings of Karl Marx, a German Jew, and numerous other influential Jewish socialists, suddenly abandoned their pluralism and tolerance and subscribed to the doctrines of their mortal enemies on the right. Simultaneous to this, the international right, enamoured for a time in the mid thirties with the notion of a world cleansed of the Jewish menace, suddenly saw the error of their ways and embraced philo-Semitism.

Or perhaps there is another explanation. Perhaps the transformation of Israel, from a socialist, democratic haven for the Jewish Diaspora, into a military super-power, an occupier and oppressor of the weak, is what turned the liberal left against her. Perhaps it’s the callous disregard for the welfare of the Palestinians, the smug, weasel worded explanation and justification for every latest atrocity, the disingenuousness of the accusations of anti-Semitism. Perhaps it’s the settler programme, a movement so heinous and blatantly illegal that even a majority of Israelis have grown to despise the racist xenophobes that steal land, poison livestock and torment Palestinian locals, all in the name of Greater Israel.

Israel’s most vocal supporters and justifiers, come from the American Jewish community. In America, lobbying groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), exhort politicians to out-do each other in demonstrating reverence for the sacred right of Israel to ‘defend herself.’ Criticism of Israeli policy is almost non-existent in the pages of American newspapers or on American television. The public is fed a diet of pro-Israeli narratives and pundits offering competing explanations as to why Israel is right and the Arabs wrong. Two years ago, an article by two of the world’s leading academics in the field of international relations, that appeared in the London Review of Books, was denounced as racist propaganda. It dared to suggest that America’s strategic interests are not best served by its uniquely close relationship with Israel. They claimed that if America continues to give Israel billions of dollars in military and economic aid, and perseveres in defending it from any sanction in the United Nations, the perception in the Arab world that America and Israel are one and the same will persist. For this apparent truism, they were condemned.

But for some, it’s not anti-Semitism or the suppression of criticism or even the conduct of the occupation that infuriates them about Israel. Rather it’s the deception. It’s the great lie that Israel and her justifiers spin. The lie is told after every ‘targeted assassination’, after every incursion that leaves death and destruction in its wake. When ever anyone tells you that Israel wants peace, they’re lying. Israel has peace. On the beach front bars of Tel Aviv and in the nightclubs and restaurants of Haifa, Israel is at peace. Israel has nothing to gain from a just and dignified peace process, and everything to lose. What concession could the Palestinians offer that would make it worth Israel’s while to concede the territory it captured in the West Bank?

If Israel wanted peace, why does it continue to construct new settlement blocks in the occupied territories in direct violation of numerous assurance it gave? Why not just continue without a peace process? Continue constructing settlements and separation barriers, continue declaring your desire for peace until the Palestinian people are so weary of poverty and oppression that they settle for whatever scraps are left? Why not wait till ’the facts on the ground’ favour Israel? What compels Israel to make concessions? It’s not in any mortal danger. One suicide attack in a year and a half that killed one civilian? A barrage of crude home made rockets that have killed 9 people in 7 years? It seems clear that the Israeli establishment have engineered a situation whereby the price of ’war’ with the Palestinians is one they are willing to pay if it means no territorial concession. The only thing that could convince them otherwise is a pressure to act from America. I wouldn’t bet on it.