Thursday, September 30, 2010
Can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved, asks Dr. Paranoia
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Dr. Paranoia wrtes about meeting an Israeli visitor:
“Explain to me this tea party again? Is it related to the Boston party in 1770s” asked our Israeli visitor, a retired government man now in US for a seminar.
“Sort of,” I said, and continued explaining the popular anger, as President Obama’s inherited problems escalated – the sub prime bonds into a bank crisis into bailout, the two wars into expanding into revolts in Pakistan, the Iranian and South Korean nuclear situations, the domestic joblessness growing, and his own health system not moving well. And the budget, and domestic Moslems’ clash. The effort to bring about a peace in Israel seemed hopeful, but it will be domed, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu terminates the agreement to stop new construction in the West Bank settlements, scheduled on 9/29.
“But you know there’s no chance for peace, the people in Gaza are Hamas,” the visitor picked up. I was surprised, this is a man whom we know well for more than two decades, a Meretz and Labor party left of center secular voter, strongly in favor of the two country solution. For years he saw a peaceful solution, recognizing that the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank were building houses and developing middle class existences, led by the secular Fatah, until the Hamas intruders arrived, and the First Intifada riots in 1989 broke the pattern.
I protested, drawing on the history of Palestinians, a more educated and Westernized population whose members emigrated and became teachers and business leaders all throughout the Maghreb, from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia into Jordan and Saudi Arabia , and whose refugees, under the Fatah leadership, might be more amenable to peaceful solutions.
He disputed that, indicating that over time the Hamas thinking has hardened and the group has grown a lot, pointing to the Gaza surrender, Israel’s losses in Lebanon and the US withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan as events that have increased the Arab radical’s expectations of eventually eradicating Israel. Many peaceful and progressive Moslems have become solid Hamas disciples. My pointing out that Egypt and Jordan still favor a peace plan did not help, as long as the Palestinian refugees’ return and sharing of Jerusalem remain part of the basic Arab negotiators’ demand. These are anathemas to the Israelis, since the count is 1.5M Palestinians on Gaza Strip and 2.5M on West Bank, vs. 8M Israelis, of which 1.5M are Arab, a population with the potential of instantly overwhelming the Jewish state. Egypt and Jordan have internal difficulties, and will not help absorb the rebellious Palestinians, whose guerillas were kicked out of Jordan in 1970. Egypt will soon have to worry about its own agricultural existence, when Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania will start blocking the headwaters of the Blue Nile.
When I mentioned progressive countries of the MidEast, our Israeli friend brought up Turkey, a secularist state since the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s reforms in the 1920s, which is now turning into a Muslim country. It sponsored a Hamas’ led first aid fleet to Gaza four months ago, resulting in bad reputation for Israel. The rising Erdogan/Gul leadership has already taken over the previously progressive army, cut its cooperation with Israel, and is planning another relief fleet; all this despite Turkey’s efforts to join the EU. Or is it because the Europeans’ gradually hardening anti-immigration attitudes, and the EU’s hesitations to admit 70 million Turks? Given the events of the past two decades, when Israel gradually surrendered its advantages, only to find that these compromises hardened Hamas’ resistance to accept Israel’s existence, our visitor asked why it is so difficult for Americans to accept Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to extend the 10-month moratorium for new construction in tWest Bank settlements beyond the September 26th deadline, or the Fatah’s unwillingness to continue the peace talks without the moratorium. Is there really a chance for peace, if the more reasonable Fatah will not accept any compromise without the rights to return and the sharing of Jerusalem? Even in 2000, when during the President Clinton’s sponsored Camp David 2000 negotiations PM Ehud Barak was wiling to surrender 98% of the West Bank, the powerful Palestinian Authority’s chairman and Fatah’s leader Yasir Arafat pulled out, for fear of retaliation by his Palestinian followers. Can his meeker successor Abu Mazen be expected to be less fearful?
These arguments are familiar, and president Obama knows them. Yet, US continues the peace effort, because of our commitments and also because it is expected of us. Did the Norwegians, sponsors of the Oslo Agreement of 1993 that cost PM Yithzak Rabin his life in 1995, not know the risks when they gave Osama the Nobel Peace Prize? Did they do it because the world’s only hope for stopping the potential universal conflagration that is sometimes called the clash of cultures exists in settling the Israeli /Palestinian conflict, at whatever cost? The perpetual state of war that the Arab world as well as the belligerent Jabotinski faction in Israel (still present, less vocal) accepted as a condition of Israel’s existence (the 2nd Intifada was a Jabotinskian creation) destroying the world’s equanimity as well as keeping the Israelis sleepless. The Israelis are ready for any direction, nuclear conflict not excepted, and many are keeping their German and Polish passports up to date. We just don’t know what this peace negotiation may lead to.
As it turned out, the expiry of Israeli’s construction moratorium on 9/26 did not cause an instant breakup of the peace talks. At this article’s deadline, Abu Mazen is consulting the Arab League. This hesitation also should suggest that the US reexamine its diplomatic toolkit, planning the chess game beyond six moves, with reversals not entirely impossible. How about bringing the water distribution in play, working on dividing the streams feeding /Lake Tiberias between Israel and the West Bank, and using Egypt’s need for US help in the Blue Nile conflict? Can offers of desalinization technology help? Can the bridge or tunnel communication between Gaza and West Bank be explored further? Given the dangers of global warming and the slow course of developing renewable energy, US might consider reversing course on nuclear energy for the Maghreb countries, offering them our support in building nuclear power plants (hey, jobs for Americans, improve our balance of trade!), which may have impact on our relations with Iran, a Persian Shia country surrounded by Sunni Islam League Arabs, existing in an internal dichotomy between acquisition and defense? Can the re-secularization of Syria contribute to peace? How about working with King Abdullah of Saudi, in bringing the Wahhabi-exporting princes in check, in their internal concerns about Shias in the oil region, in keeping al Qaeda and Hamas controlled, and on the refugee return and shared Jerusalem as prerequisites for peace. There are lots of strategies still available, if the US and the world want peace badly enough.
Dr. Paranoia wrtes about meeting an Israeli visitor:
“Explain to me this tea party again? Is it related to the Boston party in 1770s” asked our Israeli visitor, a retired government man now in US for a seminar.
“Sort of,” I said, and continued explaining the popular anger, as President Obama’s inherited problems escalated – the sub prime bonds into a bank crisis into bailout, the two wars into expanding into revolts in Pakistan, the Iranian and South Korean nuclear situations, the domestic joblessness growing, and his own health system not moving well. And the budget, and domestic Moslems’ clash. The effort to bring about a peace in Israel seemed hopeful, but it will be domed, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu terminates the agreement to stop new construction in the West Bank settlements, scheduled on 9/29.
“But you know there’s no chance for peace, the people in Gaza are Hamas,” the visitor picked up. I was surprised, this is a man whom we know well for more than two decades, a Meretz and Labor party left of center secular voter, strongly in favor of the two country solution. For years he saw a peaceful solution, recognizing that the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank were building houses and developing middle class existences, led by the secular Fatah, until the Hamas intruders arrived, and the First Intifada riots in 1989 broke the pattern.
I protested, drawing on the history of Palestinians, a more educated and Westernized population whose members emigrated and became teachers and business leaders all throughout the Maghreb, from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia into Jordan and Saudi Arabia , and whose refugees, under the Fatah leadership, might be more amenable to peaceful solutions.
He disputed that, indicating that over time the Hamas thinking has hardened and the group has grown a lot, pointing to the Gaza surrender, Israel’s losses in Lebanon and the US withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan as events that have increased the Arab radical’s expectations of eventually eradicating Israel. Many peaceful and progressive Moslems have become solid Hamas disciples. My pointing out that Egypt and Jordan still favor a peace plan did not help, as long as the Palestinian refugees’ return and sharing of Jerusalem remain part of the basic Arab negotiators’ demand. These are anathemas to the Israelis, since the count is 1.5M Palestinians on Gaza Strip and 2.5M on West Bank, vs. 8M Israelis, of which 1.5M are Arab, a population with the potential of instantly overwhelming the Jewish state. Egypt and Jordan have internal difficulties, and will not help absorb the rebellious Palestinians, whose guerillas were kicked out of Jordan in 1970. Egypt will soon have to worry about its own agricultural existence, when Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania will start blocking the headwaters of the Blue Nile.
When I mentioned progressive countries of the MidEast, our Israeli friend brought up Turkey, a secularist state since the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s reforms in the 1920s, which is now turning into a Muslim country. It sponsored a Hamas’ led first aid fleet to Gaza four months ago, resulting in bad reputation for Israel. The rising Erdogan/Gul leadership has already taken over the previously progressive army, cut its cooperation with Israel, and is planning another relief fleet; all this despite Turkey’s efforts to join the EU. Or is it because the Europeans’ gradually hardening anti-immigration attitudes, and the EU’s hesitations to admit 70 million Turks? Given the events of the past two decades, when Israel gradually surrendered its advantages, only to find that these compromises hardened Hamas’ resistance to accept Israel’s existence, our visitor asked why it is so difficult for Americans to accept Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to extend the 10-month moratorium for new construction in tWest Bank settlements beyond the September 26th deadline, or the Fatah’s unwillingness to continue the peace talks without the moratorium. Is there really a chance for peace, if the more reasonable Fatah will not accept any compromise without the rights to return and the sharing of Jerusalem? Even in 2000, when during the President Clinton’s sponsored Camp David 2000 negotiations PM Ehud Barak was wiling to surrender 98% of the West Bank, the powerful Palestinian Authority’s chairman and Fatah’s leader Yasir Arafat pulled out, for fear of retaliation by his Palestinian followers. Can his meeker successor Abu Mazen be expected to be less fearful?
These arguments are familiar, and president Obama knows them. Yet, US continues the peace effort, because of our commitments and also because it is expected of us. Did the Norwegians, sponsors of the Oslo Agreement of 1993 that cost PM Yithzak Rabin his life in 1995, not know the risks when they gave Osama the Nobel Peace Prize? Did they do it because the world’s only hope for stopping the potential universal conflagration that is sometimes called the clash of cultures exists in settling the Israeli /Palestinian conflict, at whatever cost? The perpetual state of war that the Arab world as well as the belligerent Jabotinski faction in Israel (still present, less vocal) accepted as a condition of Israel’s existence (the 2nd Intifada was a Jabotinskian creation) destroying the world’s equanimity as well as keeping the Israelis sleepless. The Israelis are ready for any direction, nuclear conflict not excepted, and many are keeping their German and Polish passports up to date. We just don’t know what this peace negotiation may lead to.
As it turned out, the expiry of Israeli’s construction moratorium on 9/26 did not cause an instant breakup of the peace talks. At this article’s deadline, Abu Mazen is consulting the Arab League. This hesitation also should suggest that the US reexamine its diplomatic toolkit, planning the chess game beyond six moves, with reversals not entirely impossible. How about bringing the water distribution in play, working on dividing the streams feeding /Lake Tiberias between Israel and the West Bank, and using Egypt’s need for US help in the Blue Nile conflict? Can offers of desalinization technology help? Can the bridge or tunnel communication between Gaza and West Bank be explored further? Given the dangers of global warming and the slow course of developing renewable energy, US might consider reversing course on nuclear energy for the Maghreb countries, offering them our support in building nuclear power plants (hey, jobs for Americans, improve our balance of trade!), which may have impact on our relations with Iran, a Persian Shia country surrounded by Sunni Islam League Arabs, existing in an internal dichotomy between acquisition and defense? Can the re-secularization of Syria contribute to peace? How about working with King Abdullah of Saudi, in bringing the Wahhabi-exporting princes in check, in their internal concerns about Shias in the oil region, in keeping al Qaeda and Hamas controlled, and on the refugee return and shared Jerusalem as prerequisites for peace. There are lots of strategies still available, if the US and the world want peace badly enough.
Labels: Ataturk, Dr. Paranoia, Mahmadinejad, Netanyahu
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 9:09 PM 
